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DEMOCRACY   AND   EDUCATION 


TEXT-BOOK   SERIES 
Editkd  bt  PAUL  MONROE,  Ph.D. 


STATE  AND  COUNTY  EDUCATIONAL  REORGANIZATION. 
By  Ellwood  P.  Cubberlky,  Ph.D.,  Professor  of  Education, 
Leland  Stanford  Junior  University. 

STATE  AND  COUNTY  SCHOOL  ADMINISTRATION. 

Vol.     I.    Text  Book  of  Principles.     In  Preparation. 
Vol.  II.     Source  Book. 
By  Ellwood  P.  Cubberley,  Ph.D.,  Professor  of  Education, 
Leland  Stanford  Junior  University,  and  Edward  C.  Elliott, 
Ph.D.,  Professor  of  Education,  University  of  Wisconsin. 

TEXT-BOOK   IN   THE   PRINCIPLES   OF   EDUCATION. 

By  Ernest  N.  Henderson,  Ph.D.,  Professor  of  Education  and 
Philosophy,  Adelphi  College. 

PRINCIPLES   OF   SECONDARY   EDUCATION. 

By  Paul  Monroe,  Ph.D.,  Professor  of  History  of  Education, 
Teachers  College,  Columbia  University. 

TEXT-BOOK   IN   THE    HISTORY   OF   EDUCATION. 
By  Paul  Monroe,  Ph.D. 

SOURCE  BOOK  IN  THE  HISTORY   OF   EDUCATION.     For 
THE  Greek  and  Roman  Period. 
By  Paul  Monroe,  Ph.D. 

A     HISTORY    OF    THE     FAMILY    AS     A     SOCIAL    AND 
EDUCATIONAL  INSTITUTION. 
By    WiLLYSTiNB    GroODSELL,   Ph.D.,   Assistaut  Professor  of 
Education,  Teachers  College,  Columbia  University. 

DEMOCRACY  AND  EDUCATION.     An  Introduction  to  thk 
Philosophy  of  Education. 
By  John  Dewey,  Ph.D. 


DEMOCRACY  AND 
EDUCATION 


AN   INTRODUCTION   TO   THE  PHILOS- 
OPHY OF   EDUCATION 


BY 
JOHN   DEWEY 


XHE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 


COPYKIGHT,    1916, 

By  the  MACMILLAN   COMPANY. 


All  rights  reserved  —  no  part  of  this  book 
may  be  reproduced  in  any  form  without 
permission  in  writing  from  the  publisher, 
except  by  a  reviewer  who  wishes  to  quote 
brief  passages  in  connection  with  a  review 
written  for  inclusion  in  magazine  or 
newspaper. 


Twenty-Eighth  Printing,  1955 


PKINTED  IN   THE  UNITED   STATES   OP  AMERICA 


PREFACE 

The  following  pages  embody  an  endeavor  to  detect  and 
state  the  ideas  implied  in  a  democratic  society  and  to  apply 
these  ideas  to  the  problems  of  the  enterprise  of  education.  The 
discussion  includes  an  indication  of  the  constructive  aims  and 
methods  of  public  education  as  seen  from  this  point  of  view, 
and  a  critical  estimate  of  the  theories  of  knowing  and  moral 
development  which  were  formulated  in  earlier  social  condi- 
tions, but  which  still  operate,  in  societies  nominally  democratic, 
to  hamper  the  adequate  realization  of  the  democratic  ideal. 
As  will  appear  from  the  book  itself,  the  philosophy  stated 
in  this  book  connects  the  growth  of  democracy  with  the 
development  of  the  experimental  method  in  the  sciences, 
evolutionary  ideas  in  the  biological  sciences,  and  the  industrial 
reorganization,  and  is  concerned  to  point  out  the  changes  in 
subject  matter  and  method  of  education  indicated  by  these 
developments. 

Hearty  acknowledgments  are  due  to  Dr.  Goodsell  of  Teach- 
ers College  for  criticisms ;  to  Professor  Kilpatrick  of  the  same 
institution  for  criticisms,  and  for  suggestions  regarding  the 
order  of  topics,  of  which  I  have  freely  availed  myself,  and  to 
Miss  Elsie  Ripley  Clapp  for  many  criticisms  and  suggestions. 
The  two  firstnamed  have  also  been  kind  enough  to  read  the 
proofsheets.  I  am  also  greatly  indebted  to  a  long  line  of 
students  whose  successive  classes  span  more  years  than  I 
care  to  enumerate. 

J.  D. 

Columbia  University,  Nkw  York  City, 
Aujfust,  1915. 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 

Education  as  a  Necessity  of  Life:  mbb 

Renewal  of  Life  by  Transmission 1 

Education  and  Communication 4 

The  Place  of  Formal  Education 7 

Summary 11 


/ 


CHAPTER   II 
Education  as  a  Social  Function  : 

The  Nature  and  Meaning  of  Environment 12 

The  Social  Environment 14 

The  Social  Medium  as  Educative 19 

The  School  as  a  Special  Environment 22 

Summary 26 

CHAPTER   III 
Education  as  Direction  : 

The  Environment  as  Directive 28 

Modes  of  Social  Direction 31 

Imitation  and  Social  Psychology 40 

Some  Applications  to  Education 43 

Summary 47 

CHAPTER   IV 
Education  as  Growth  : 

The  Conditions  of  Growth 49 

Habits  as  Expressions  of  Growth 54 

The  Educational  Bearings  of  the  Conception  of  Development         .  59 

Summary 62 

vii 


vui  Table  of  Contents 


CHAPTER   V 

Preparation,  Unfolding,  and  Formal  Discipline:  pag« 

Education  as  Preparation 63 

Education  as  Unfolding 65 

Education  as  Training  of  Faculties 70 

Summary r  79 

CHAPTER  VI 
Education  as  Conservative  and  Progressive: 

Education  as  Formation 81 

Education  as  Recapitulation  and  Retrospection         ....  84 

Education  as  Reconstruction      ........  89 

Summary ...92 

CHAPTER   VII 

The  Democratic  Conception  in  Education: 

The  Implications  of  Human  Association    ......  94 

Thf,  Democratic  Ideal 100 

The  Platonic  Educational  Philosophy 102 

The  "  Individualistic  "  Ideal  of  the  Eighteenth  Century    .         .         .  106 

Education  as  National  and  as  Social 108 

Summary 115 

CHAPTER   VIII 
Aims  in  Education  : 

The  Nature  of  an  Aim 117 

The  Criteria  of  Good  Aims 121 

Applications  in  Education 124 

Summary 129 

CHAPTER,  IX 
Natural  Development  and  Social  Efficiency  as  Aims: 

Nature  as  Supplying  the  Aim 130 

Social  Efficiency  as  Aim 138 

Culture  as  Aim 142 

Summary ,  144 


Table  of  Contents  ix. 


CHAPTER  X 

Interest  and  Discipline:  pace 

The  Meaning  of  the  Terms ,  146 

The  Importance  of  the  Idea  of  Interest  in  Education        .        .        .  152 

Some  Social  Aspects  of  the  Question 158 

Summary 161 


CHAPTER  XI 

Experience  and  Thinking  : 

The  Nature  of  Experience 163 

Reflection  in  Experience 169 

Summary 177 


CHAPTER  XII 
Thinking  in  Education  : 

The  Essentials  of  Method 179 

Summary 192 


CHAPTER  XIII 
The  Nature  of  Method  : 

The  Unity  of  Subject  Matter  and  Method 193 

Method  as  General  and  as  Individual 200 

The  Traits  of  Individual  Method 203 

Summary 21] 


CHAPTER  XIV 

The  Nature  of  Subject  Matter: 

Subject  Matter  of  Educator  and  of  Learner 212 

The  Development  of  Subject  Matter  in  the  Learner         .        .        .  216 

Science  or  Rationalized  Knowledge 221 

Subject  Matter  as  Social 224 

Summary 226 


Table  of  Contents 


CHAPTER   XV 

PlAT  AND  Work  in  the  Curriculum  :  pack 

The  Place  of  Active  Occupations  in  Education 228 

Available  Occupations 230 

Work  and  Play 237 

Summary 241 


CHAPTER   XVI 

The  Significance  of  Geography  and  History: 

Extension  of  Meaning  of  Primary  Activities       .....  243 

The  Complementary  Nature  of  History  and  Geography    .        .        .  246 

History  and  Present  Social  Life 250 

Summary 255 


CHAPTER  XVII 

Science  in  the  Course  of  Study: 

The  Logical  and  the  Psychological 256 

Science  and  Social  Progress 261 

Naturalism  and  Humanism  in  Education 267 

Summary 269 


CHAPTER  XVIIl 
Educational  Values  : 

The  Nature  of  Realization  or  Appreciation 271 

The  Valuation  of  Studies 279 

The  Segregation  and  Organization  of  Values 285 

Summary     .............  291 


CHAPTER  XIX 
Labor  and  Leisure: 

The  Origin  of  the  Opposition 293 

The  Present  Situation 298 

Sununary 305 


Table  of  Contents  xi 


CHAPTER   XX 

Intellectual  and  Practical  Studies  :  pack 

The  Opposition  of  Experience  and  True  Knowledge        .        .        .    306 
The  Modern  Theory  of  Experience  and  Knowledge  .        .        .311 

Experience  as  Experimentation 317 

Summary 322 


CHAPTER   XXI 

Physical  and  Social  Studies  :  Naturalism  and  Humanism  : 

The  Historic  Background  of  Humanistic  Study         ....  324 

The  Modern  Scientific  Interest  in  Nature 328 

The  Present  Educational  Problem 333 

Summary 338 


CHAPTER   XXII 

The  Individual  and  the  World: 

Mind  as  Purely  Individual 340 

Individual  Mind  as  the  Agent  of  Reorganization        ....  343 

Educational  Equivalents 351 

Summary iSS 


CHAPTER   XXIII 

Vocational  Aspects  of  Education  : 

The  Meaning  of  Vocation 358 

The  Place  of  Vocational  Aims  in  Education 360 

Present  Opportunities  and  Dangers 364 

Summary 373 


CHAPTER   XXIV 

Philosophy  of  Education  : 

A  Critical  Review 375 

The  Nature  of  Philosophy 378 

Summary 387 


xu  Table  of  Contents 

CHAPTER  XXV 

Thbokies  of  Knowledge:  pa« 

Continuity  versus  Dualism 388 

Schools  of  Method 395 

Summary 400 


CHAPTER   XXVI 
Theories  of  Morals  : 

The  Inner  and  Outer 402 

The  Opposition  of  Duty  and  Interest 407 

Intelligence  and  Character 410 

The  Social  and  the  Moral 414 

Summary     .         .  .        .        ,        .        »        .        .        o        •.  418 


DEMOCRACY   AND   EDUCATION 


A  BRIEF  COURSE  IN  PHILOSOPHY 
OF  EDUCATION 

CHAPTER  I 

EDUCATION   AS   A   NECESSITY   OF   LIFE 

1.  Renewal  of  Life  by  Transmission.  —  The  most  notable 
distinction  between  living  and  inanimate  beings  is  that  the 
former  maintain  themselves  by  renewal.  A  stone  when 
struck  resists.  If  its  resistance  is  greater  than  the  force  of 
the  blow  struck,  it  remains  outwardly  unchanged.  Otherwise, 
it  is  shattered  into  smaller  bits.  Never  does  the  stone  at- 
tempt to  react  in  such  a  way  that  it  may  maintain  itself 
against  the  blow,  much  less  so  as  to  render  the  blow  a  con- 
tributing factor  to  its  own  continued  action.  While  the  liv- 
ing thing  may  easily  be  crushed  by  superior  force,  it  none 
the  less  tries  to  turn  the  energies  which  act  upon  it  into 
means  of  its  own  further  existence.  If  it  cannot  do  so,  it 
does  not  just  spUt  into  smaller  pieces  (at  least  in  the  higher 
forms  of  Ufe),  but  loses  its  identity  as  a  living  thing. 

As  long  as  it  endures,  it  struggles  to  use  surrounding  ener- 
gies in  its  own  behalf.  It  uses  light,  air,  moisture,  and  the  ma- 
terial of  soil.  To  say  that  it  uses  them  is  to  say  that  it  turns 
them  into  means  of  its  own  conservation.  As  long  as  it  is 
growing,  the  energy  it  expends  in  thus  turning  the  environ- 
ment to  account  is  more  than  compensated  for  by  the  return 
it  gets :  it  grows.  Understanding  the  word  *  control '  in  this 
sense,  it  may  be  said  that  a  living  being  is  one  that  subjugates 


2  Philosophy  of  Education 

and  controls  for  its  own  continued  activity  the  energies  that 
would  otherwise  use  it  up.  Life  is  a  self-renewing  process 
through  action  upon  the  environment. 

In  all  the  higher  forms  this  process  cannot  be  kept  up  indefi- 
nitely. After  a  while  they  succumb ;  they  die.  The  crea- 
ture is  not  equal  to  the  task  of  indefinite  self-renewal.  But 
continuity  of  the  hfe  process  is  not  dependent  upon  the  pro- 
longation of  the  existence  of  any  one  individual.  Reproduc- 
tion of  other  forms  of  life  goes  on  in  continuous  sequence.  And 
though,  as  the  geological  record  shows,  not  merely  individuals 
but  also  species  die  out,  the  Ufe  process  continues  in  increas- 
ingly complex  forms.  As  some  species  die  out,  forms  better 
adapted  to  utilize  the  obstacles  against  which  they  struggled 
in  vain  come  into  being.  Continuity  of  Hfe  means  continual 
readaptation  of  the  environment  to  the  needs  of  living  or- 
ganisms. 

We  have  been  speaking  of  life  in  its  lowest  terms  —  as  a 
physical  thing.  But  we  use  the  word  '  hfe '  to  denote  the 
whole  range  of  experience,  individual  and  racial.  When  we 
see  a  book  called  the  Life  of  Lincoln  we  do  not  expect  to  find 
within  its  covers  a  treatise  on  physiology.  We  look  for  an 
account  of  social  antecedents ;  a  description  of  early  surround- 
ings, of  the  conditions  and  occupation  of  the  family ;  of  the 
chief  episodes  in  the  development  of  character;  of  signal 
struggles  and  achievements ;  of  the  individual's  hopes,  tastes, 
joys  and  sufferings.  In  precisely  similar  fashion  we  speak  of 
the  hfe  of  a  savage  tribe,  of  the  Athenian  people,  of  the 
American  nation.  "  Life  "  covers  customs,  institutions,  be- 
liefs, victories  and  defeats,  recreations  and  occupations. 

We  employ  the  word 'experience'  in  the  same  pregnant  sense. 
And  to  it,  as  well  as  to  life  in  the  bare  physiological  sense,  the 
principle  of  continuity  through  renewal  appHes.  With  the 
renewal  of  physical  existence  goes,  in  the  case  of  human  beings, 
the  re-creation  of  beUefs,  ideals,  hopes,  happiness,  misery,  and 
practices.    The  continuity  of  any  experience,  through  renew- 


Education  as  a  Necessity  of  Life  3 

ing  of  the  social  group,  is  a  literal  fact.  Education,  in  its 
broadest  sense,  is  the  means  of  this  social  continuity  of  Kfe. 
Every  one  of  the  constituent  elements  of  a  social  group,  in  a 
modern  city  as  in  a  savage  tribe,  is  bom  immature,  helpless, 
without  language,  beliefs,  ideas,  or  social  standards.  Each 
individual,  each  unit  who  is  the  carrier  of  the  Ufe-experience 
of  his  group,  in  time  passes  away.  Yet  the  Ufe  of  the  group 
goes  on. 

The  primary  ineluctable  facts  of  the  birth  and  death  of 
each  one  of  the  constituent  members  in  a  social  group  deter- 
mine the  necessity  of  education.  On  one  hand,  there  is  the 
contrast  between  the  immaturity  of  the  new-bom  members 
of  the  group  —  its  future  sole  representatives  —  and  the  ma- 
turity of  the  adult  members  who  possess  the  knowledge  and 
customs  of  the  group.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  the  necessity 
that  these  immature  members  be  not  merely  physically  pre- 
served in  adequate  numbers,  but  that  they  be  initiated  into  the 
interests,  purposes,  information,  skill,  and  practices  of  the  ma- 
ture members :  otherwise  the  group  will  cease  its  characteristic 
life.  Even  in  a  savage  tribe,  the  achdevements  of  adults  are 
far  beyond  what  the  immature  members  would  be  capable  of  if 
left  to  themselves.  With  the  growth  of  civilization,  the  gap 
between  the  original  capacities  of  the  immature  and  the 
standards  and  customs  of  the  elders  increases.  Mere  physi- 
cal growing  up,  mere  mastery  of  the  bare  necessities  of  subsist- 
ence will  not  suffice  to  reproduce  the  Ufe  of  the  group.  De- 
liberate effort  and  the  taking  of  thoughtful  pains  are  required. 
Beings  who  are  bom  not  only  unaware  of,  but  quite  indiffer- 
ent to,  the  aims  and  habits  of  the  social  group  have  to  be  ren- 
dered cognizant  of  them  and  actively  interested.  Education, 
and  education  alone,  spans  the  gap. 

Society  exists  through  a  process  of  transmission  quite  as  much 
as  biological  life.  This  transmission  occurs  by  means  of  com- 
munication of  habits  of  doing,  thinking,  and  feeling  from  the 
older  to  the  younger.    Without  this  communication  of  ideals, 


4  Philosophy  of  Education 

hopes,  expectations,  standards,  opinions,  from  those  members 
of  society  who  are  passing  out  of  the  group  life  to  those  who 
are  coming  into  it,  social  life  could  not  survive.  If  the 
members  who  compose  a  society  lived  on  continuously,  they 
might  educate  the  new-born  members,  but  it  would  be  a 
task  directed  by  personal  interest  rather  than  social  need. 
Now  it  is  a  work  of  necessity. 

If  a  plague  carried  off  the  members  of  a  society  all  at  once, 
it  is  obvious  that  the  group  would  be  permanently  done 
for.  Yet  the  death  of  each  of  its  constituent  members  is  as 
certain  as  if  an  epidemic  took  them  all  at  once.  But  the 
graded  difference  in  age,  the  fact  that  some  are  born  as  some 
die,  makes  possible  through  transmission  of  ideas  and  prac- 
tices the  constant  reweaving  of  the  social  fabric.  Yet  this 
renewal  is  not  automatic.  Unless  pains  are  taken  to  see  that 
genuine  and  thorough  transmission  takes  place,  the  most 
civilized  group  will  relapse  into  barbarism  and  then  into 
savagery.  In  fact,  the  human  young  are  so  immature  that 
if  they  were  left  to  themselves  without  the  guidance  and  succor 
of  others,  they  could  not  even  acquire  the  rudimentary 
abilities  necessary  for  physical  existence.  The  young  of 
human  beings  compare  so  poorly  in  original  efficiency  with 
the  young  of  many  of  the  lower  animals,  that  even  the  powers 
needed  for  physical  sustentation  have  to  be  acquired  under 
tuition.  How  much  more,  then,  is  this  the  case  with  respect 
to  all  the  technological,  artistic,  scientific,  and  moral  achieve- 
ments of  humanity! 

2.  Education  and  Communication.  —  So  obvious,  indeed,  is 
the  necessity  of  teaching  and  learning  for  the  continued  exist- 
ence of  a  society  that  we  may  seem  to  be  dwelUng  unduly 
on  a  truism.  But  justification  is  found  in  the  fact  that  such 
emphasis  is  a  means  of  getting  us  away  from  an  unduly 
scholastic  and  formal  notion  of  education.  Schools  are, 
indeed,  one  important  method  of  the  transmission  which 
forms  the  dispositions  of  the  immature;  but  it  is  only  one 


Education  as  a  Necessity  of  Life  5 

means,  and,  compared  with  other  agencies,  a  relatively  super- 
ficial means.  Only  as  we  have  grasped  the  necessity  of  more 
fundamental  and  persistent  modes  of  tuition  can  we  make  sure 
of  placing  the  scholastic  methods  in  their  true  context. 

Society  not  only  continues  to  exist  by  transmission,  by 
communication,  but  it  may  fairly  be  said  to  exist  in  trans- 
mission, in  communication.  There  is  more  than  a  verbal  tie 
between  the  words  common,  community,  and  communication. 
Men  Hve  in  a  community  in  virtue  of  the  things  which  they 
have  in  common;  and  communication  is  the  way  in  which 
they  come  to  possess  things  in  common.  What  they  must 
have  in  common  in  order  to  form  a  community  or  society  are 
aims,  behefs,  aspirations,  knowledge  —  a  common  under- 
standing —  like-mindedness  as  the  sociologists  say.  Sucli 
things  cannot  be  passed  physically  from  one  to  another,  likt; 
bricks;  they  cannot  be  shared  as  persons  would  share  a 
pie  by  dividing  it  into  physical  pieces.  The  communication 
which  insures  participation  in  a  common  understanding  is 
one  which  secures  similar  emotional  and  intellectual  disposi- 
tions —  like  ways  of  responding  to  expectations  and  require- 
ments. 

Persons  do  not  become  a  society  by  living  in  physical 
proximity,  any  more  than  a  man  ceases  to  be  socially  in- 
fluenced by  being  so  many  feet  or  miles  removed  from  others. 
A  book  or  a  letter  may  institute  a  more  intimate  association 
between  human  beings  separated  thousands  of  miles  from 
each  other  than  exists  between  dwellers  under  the  same  roof. 
Individuals  do  not  even  compose  a  social  group  because  they 
all  work  for  a  common  end.  The  parts  of  a  machine  work 
with  a  maximum  of  cooperativeness  for  a  common  result, 
but  they  do  not  form  a  community.  If,  however,  they  were 
all  cognizant  of  the  common  end  and  all  interested  in  it  so 
that  they  regulated  their  specific  activity  in  view  of  it,  then 
they  would  form  a  community.  But  this  would  involve  com- 
mimication.    Each  would  have  to  know  what  the  other  was 


6  Philosophy  of  Education 

about  and  would  have  to  have  some  way  of  keeping  the  other 
informed  as  to  his  own  purpose  and  progress.  Consensus 
demands  communication. 

We  are  thus  compelled  to  recognize  that  within  even  the 
most  social  group  there  are  many  relations  which  are  not  as 
yet  social.  A  large  number  of  human  relationships  in  any 
social  group  are  still  upon  the  machine-like  plane.  Individ- 
uals use  one  another  so  as  to  get  desired  results,  without  ref- 
erence to  the  emotional  and  intellectual  disposition  and  con- 
sent of  those  used.  Such  uses  express  physical  superiority,  or 
superiority  of  position,  skill,  technical  ability,  and  command  of 
tools,  mechanical  or  fiscal.  So  far  as  the  relations  of  parent 
and  child,  teacher  and  pupil,  employer  and  employee,  governor 
and  governed,  remain  upon  this  level,  they  form  no  true 
social  group,  no  matter  how  closely  their  respective  activities 
touch  one  another.  Giving  and  taking  of  orders  modifies 
action  and  results,  but  does  not  of  itself  effect  a  sharing  of 
purposes,  a  communication  of  interests. 

Not  onl}'-  is  social  life  identical  with  communication,  but 
all  communication  (and  hence  all  genuine  social  life)  is  educa- 
tive. To  be  a  recipient  of  a  communication  is  to  have  an 
enlarged  and  changed  experience.  One  shares  in  what  another 
has  thought  and  felt  and  in  so  far,  meagerly  or  amply,  has  his 
own  attitude  modified.  Nor  is  the  one  who  communicates 
left  unaffected.  Try  the  experiment  of  communicating,  with 
fullness  and  accuracy,  some  experience  to  another,  especially 
if  it  be  somewhat  complicated,  and  you  will  find  your  own 
attitude  toward  your  experience  changing;  otherwise  you 
resort  to  expletives  and  ejaculations.  The  experience  has 
to  be  formulated  in  order  to  be  communicated.  To  formu- 
late requires  getting  outside  of  it,  seeing  it  as  another  would 
see  it,  considering  what  points  of  contact  it  has  with  the  life 
of  another  so  that  it  may  be  got  into  such  form  that  he  can 
appreciate  its  meaning.  Except  in  dealing  with  commonplaces 
and  catch  phrases  one  has  to  assimilate,  imaginatively,  some- 


Education  as  a  Necessity  of  Life  7 

thing  of  another's  experience  in  order  to  tell  him  intelligently 
of  one's  own  experience.  All  communication  is  Kke  art. 
It  may  fairly  be  said,  therefore,  that  any  social  arrangement 
that  remains  vitally  social,  or  vitally  shared,  is  educative  to 
those  who  participate  in  it.  Only  when  it  becomes  cast  in 
a  mold  and  runs  in  a  routine  way  does  it  lose  its  educative 
power. 

In  final  account,  then,  not  only  does  social  life  demand 
teaching  and  learning  for  its  own  permanence,  but  the  very 
process  of  living  together  educates.  It  enlarges  and  en- 
Hghtens  experience;  it  stimulates  and  enriches  imagina- 
tion; it  creates  responsibiUty  for  accuracy  and  vividness  of 
statement  and  thought.  A  man  really  living  alone  (alone 
mentally  as  well  as  physically)  would  have  little  or  no  occa- 
sion to  reflect  upon  his  past  experience  to  extract  its  net 
meaning.  The  inequality  of  achievement  between  the  mature 
and  the  immature  not  only  necessitates  teaching  the  young, 
but  the  necessity  of  this  teaching  gives  an  immense  stimulus 
to  reducing  experience  to  that  order  and  form  which  will 
render  it  most  easily  communicable  and  hence  most  usable. 

3.  The  Place  of  Formal  Education.  —  There  is,  accordingly, 
a  marked  difference  between  the  education  which  every  one 
gets  from  living  with  others,  as  long  as  he  really  lives  instead 
of  just  continuing  to  subsist,  and  the  deliberate  educating  of 
the  young.  In  the  former  case  the  education  is  incidental; 
it  is  natural  and  important,  but  it  is  not  the  express  reason  of 
the  association.  While  it  may  be  said,  without  exaggeration, 
that  the  measure  of  the  worth  of  any  social  institution, 
economic,  domestic,  poHtical,  legal,  religious,  is  its  effect  in 
enlarging  and  improving  experience ;  yet  this  effect  is  not  a 
part  of  its  original  motive,  which  is  limited  and  more  imme- 
diately practical.  Religious  associations  began,  for  example, 
in  the  desire  to  secure  the  favor  of  overruling  powers  and  to 
ward  off  evil  influences;  family  Hfe  in  the  desire  to  gratify 
appetites  and  secure  family  perpetuity ;  systematic  labor,  for 


8  Philosophy  of  Education 

the  most  part,  because  of  enslavement  to  others,  etc.  Only 
gradually  was  the  by-product  of  the  institution,  its  effect  upon 
the  quality  and  extent  of  conscious  life,  noted,  and  only  more 
gradually  still  was  this  effect  considered  as  a  directive  factor 
in  the  conduct  of  the  institution.  Even  to-day,  in  our  indus- 
trial life,  apart  from  certain  values  of  industriousness  and 
thrift,  the  intellectual  and  emotional  reaction  of  the  forms  of 
human  association  under  which  the  world's  work  is  carried  on 
receives  little  attention  as  compared  with  physical  output. 

But  in  dealing  with  the  young,  the  fact  of  association  itself 
as  an  immediate  human  fact,  gains  in  importance.  While 
it  is  easy  to  ignore  in  our  contact  with  them  the  effect  of  our 
acts  upon  their  disposition,  or  to  subordinate  that  educative 
effect  to  some  external  and  tangible  result,  it  is  not  so  easy 
as  in  dealing  with  adults.  The  need  of  training  is  too  evi- 
dent; the  pressure  to  accomplish  a  change  in  their  attitude 
and  habits  is  too  urgent  to  leave  these  consequences  wholly 
out  of  account.  Since  our  chief  business  with  them  is  to  enable 
them  to  share  in  a  common  Hfe  we  cannot  help  considering 
whether  or  no  we  are  forming  the  powers  which  will  secure  this 
ability.  If  humanity  has  made  some  headway  in  realizing 
that  the  ultimate  value  of  every  institution  is  its  distinctively 
human  effect — its  effect  upon  conscious  experience — we  may 
well  believe  that  this  lesson  has  been  learned  largely  through 
dealings  with  the  young. 

We  are  thus  led  to  distinguish,  within  the  broad  educational 
process  which  we  have  been  so  far  considering,  a  more  formal 
kind  of  education  —  that  of  direct  tuition  or  schooling.  In 
undeveloped  social  groups,  we  find  very  little  formal  teaching 
and  training.  Savage  groups  mainly  rely  for  instilling 
needed  dispositions  into  the  young  upon  the  same  sort  of 
association  which  keeps  adults  loyal  to  their  group.  They 
have  no  special  devices,  material,  or  institutions  for  teaching 
save  in  connection  with  initiation  ceremonies  by  which  the 
youth  are  inducted  into  full  social  membership.     For  the 


Education  as  a  Necessity  of  Life  9 

most  part,  they  depend  upon  children  learning  the  customs 
of  the  adults,  acquiring  their  emotional  set  and  stock  of 
ideas,  by  sharing  in  what  the  elders  are  doing.  In  part,  this 
sharing  is  direct,  taking  part  in  the  occupations  of  adults 
and  thus  serving  an  apprenticeship;  in  part,  it  is  indirect, 
through  the  dramatic  plays  in  which  children  reproduce  the 
actions  of  grown-ups  and  thus  learn  to  know  what  they  are 
like.  To  savages  it  would  seem  preposterous  to  seek  out  a 
place  where  nothing  but  learning  was  going  on  in  order  that 
one  might  learn. 

But  as  civilization  advances,  the  gap  between  the  capacities 
of  the  young  and  the  concerns  of  adults  widens.  Learning 
by  direct  sharing  in  the  pursuits  of  grown-ups  becomes  in- 
creasingly difl&cult  except  in  the  case  of  the  ]3ss  advanced  occu- 
pations. Much  of  what  adults  do  is  so  remote  in  space  and 
in  meaning  that  playful  imitation  is  less  and  less  adequate  to 
reproduce  its  spirit.  Ability  to  share  effectively  in  adult 
activities  thus  depends  upon  a  prior  training  given  with  this 
end  in  view.  Intentional  agencies  —  schools  —  and  exphcit 
material  —  studies  —  are  devised.  The  task  of  teaching 
certain  things  is  delegated  to  a  special  group  of  persons. 

Without  such  formal  education,  it  is  not  possible  to  trans- 
mit all  the  resources  and  achievements  of  a  complex  society. 
It  also  opens  a  way  to  a  kind  of  experience  which  would  not 
be  accessible  to  the  young,  if  they  were  left  to  pick  up  their 
training  in  informal  association  with  others,  since  books  and 
the  symbols  of  knowledge  are  mastered. 

But  there  are  conspicuous  dangers  attendant  upon  the 
transition  from  indirect  to  formal  education.  Sharing  in 
actual  pursuit,  whether  directly  or  vicariously  in  play,  is  at 
least  personal  and  vital.  These  quahties  compensate,  in 
some  measure,  for  the  narrowness  of  available  opportunities. 
Formal  instruction,  on  the  contrary,  easily  becomes  remote 
and  dead  —  abstract  and  bookish,  to  use  the  ordinary  words 
of   depreciation.    What    accumulated   knowledge   exists   in 


lo  Philosophy  of  Education 

low  grade  societies  is  at  least  put  into  practice ;  it  is  trans- 
muted into  character ;  it  exists  with  the  depth  of  meaning  that 
attaches  to  its  coming  within  urgent  daily  interests. 

But  in  an  advanced  culture  much  which  has  to  be  learned 
is  stored  in  symbols.  It  is  far  from  translation  into  familiar 
acts  and  objects.  Such  material  is  relatively  technical  and 
superficial.  Taking  the  ordinary  standard  of  reality  as  a 
measure,  it  is  artificial.  For  this  measure  is  connection  with 
practical  concerns.  Such  material  exists  in  a  world  by  itself, 
unassimilated  to  ordinary  customs  of  thought  and  expres- 
sion. There  is  the  standing  danger  that  the  material  of 
formal  instruction  will  be  merely  the  subject  matter  of  the 
schools,  isolated  from  the  subject  matter  of  life-experience. 
The  permanent  social  interests  are  likely  to  be  lost  from  view. 
Those  which  have  not  been  carried  over  into  the  structure  of 
social  life,  but  which  remain  largely  matters  of  technical  in- 
formation expressed  in  symbols,  are  made  conspicuous  in 
schools.  Thus  we  reach  the  ordinary  notion  of  education : 
the  notion  which  ignores  its  social  necessity  and  its  identity 
with  all  human  association  that  affects  conscious  life,  and 
which  identifies  it  with  imparting  information  about  remote 
matters  and  the  conveying  of  learning  through  verbal  signs : 
the  acquisition  of  literacy. 

Hence  one  cf  the  weightiest  problems  with  which  the 
philosophy  of  education  has  to  cope  is  the  method  of 
keeping  a  proper  balance  between  the  informal  and  the  formal, 
the  incidental  and  the  intentional,  modes  of  education.  When 
the  acquiring  of  information  and  of  technical  intellectual 
skill  do  not  influence  the  formation  of  a  social  disposi- 
tion, ordinary  vital  experience  fails  to  gain  in  meaning,  while 
schooling,  in  so  far,  creates  only  *  sharps  '  in  learning — that  is, 
egoistic  specialists.  To  avoid  a  split  between  what  men 
consciously  know  because  they  are  aware  of  having  learned  it 
by  a  specific  job  of  learning,  and  what  they  unconsciously 
know  because  they  have  absorbed  it  in  the  formation  of 


Ediication  as  a  Necessity  of  Life  ii 

their  characters  by  intercourse  with  others,  becomes  an  in- 
creasingly delicate  task  with  every  development  of  special 
schooling. 

Summary.  —  It  is  the  very  nature  of  life  to  strive  to  con- 
tinue in  being.  Since  this  continuance  can  be  secured  only 
by  constant  renewals,  life  is  a  self-renewing  process.  What 
nutrition  and  reproduction  are  to  physiological  life,  educatipn 
is  to  social  life.  This  education  consists  primarily  in  trans^ 
mission  through  communication.  Communication  is  a  pro- 
cess of  sharing  experience  till  it  becomes  a  common  possession. 
It  modifies  the  disposition  of  both  the  parties  who  partake 
in  it.  That  the  ulterior  significance  of  every  mode  of  human 
association  lies  in  the  contribution  which  it  makes  to  the  im- 
provement of  the  quality  of  experience  is  a  fact  most  easily 
recognized  in  dealing  with  the  immature.  That  is  to  say, 
while  every  social  arrangment  is  educative  in  effect,  the  educa- 
tive effect  first  becomes  an  important  part  of  the  purpose  of 
the  association  in  connection  with  the  association  of  the  older 
with  the  younger.  As  societies  become  more  complex  in 
structure  and  resources,  the  need  of  formal  or  intentional 
teaching  and  learning  increases.  As  formal  teaching  and 
training  grow  in  extent,  there  is  the  danger  of  creating  an 
undesirable  split  between  the  experience  gained  in  more 
direct  associations  and  what  is  acquired  in  school.  This 
danger  was  never  greater  than  at  the  present  time,  on  account 
of  the  rapid  growth  in  the  last  few  centuries  of  knowledge 
and  technical  modes  of  skill. 


CHAPTER  II 

•  EDUCATION  AS  A   SOCIAL  FUNCTION 

1.   The  Nature  and  Meaning  of  Environment.  —  We  have 

seen  that  a  community  or  social  group  sustains  itself  through 
continuous  self-renewal,  and  that  this  renewal  takes  place 
by  means  of  the  educational  growth  of  the  immature  members 
of  the  group.  By  various  agencies,  unintentional  and  de- 
signed, a  society  transforms  uninitiated  and  seemingly  alien 
beings  into  robust  trustees  of  its  own  resources  and  ideals. 
Education  is  thus  a  fostering,  a  nurturing,  a  cultivating,  pro- 
cess. All  of  these  words  mean  that  it  implies  attention  to 
the  conditions  of  growth.  We  also  speak  of  rearing,  raising, 
bringing  up — words  which  express  the  difference  of  level  which 
education  aims  to  cover.  Etymologically,  the  word  educa- 
tion means  just  a  process  of  leading  or  bringing  up.  When 
we  have  the  outcome  of  the  process  in  mind,  we  speak  of 
education  as  shaping,  forming,  molding  activity  —  that  is, 
a  shaping  into  the  standard  form  of  social  activity.  In  this 
chapter  we  are  concerned  with  the  general  features  of  the 
way  in  which  a  social  group  brings  up  its  immature  members 
into  its  own  social  form. 

Since  what  is  required  is  a  transformation  of  the  quality 
of  experience  till  it  partakes  in  the  interests,  purposes,  and 
ideas  current  in  the  social  group,  the  problem  is  evidently 
not  one  of  mere  physical  forming.  Things  can  be  physically 
transported  in  space;  they  may  be  bodily  conveyed.  Be- 
liefs and  aspirations  cannot  be  physically  extracted  and  in- 
serted. How  then  are  they  communicated?  Given  the 
impossibility  of  direct  contagion  or  literal  inculcation,  our 


Educaiion  as  a  Social  Function  13 

problem  is  to  discover  the  method  by  which  the  young  assim- 
ilate the  point  of  view  of  the  old,  or  the  older  bring  the  young 
into  likemindedness  with  themselves. 

The  answer,  in  general  formulation,  is :  By  means  of  the 
action  of  the  environment  in  calling  out  certain  responses. 
The  required  beHefs  cannot  be  hammered  in;  the  needed 
attitudes  cannot  be  plastered  on.  But  the  particular  medium 
in  which  an  individual  exists  leads  him  to  see  and  feel  one 
thing  rather  than  another ;  it  leads  him  to  have  certain  plans 
in  order  that  he  may  act  successfully  with  others ;  it  strength- 
ens some  behefs  and  weakens  others  as  a  condition  of  winning 
the  approval  of  others.  Thus  it  gradually  produces  in  him  a 
certain  system  of  behavior,  a  certain  disposition  of  action. 
The  words  '  environment,'  *  medium '  denote  something 
more  than  surroundings  which  encompass  an  individual. 
They  denote  the  specific  continuity  of  the  surroundings  with 
his  own  active  tendencies.  An  inanimate  being  is,  of  course, 
continuous  with  its  surroundings;  but  the  environing  cir- 
cumstances do  not,  save  metaphorically,  constitute  an  en- 
vironment. For  the  inorganic  being  is  not  concerned  in  the 
influences  which  affect  it.  On  the  other  hand,  some  things 
which  are  remote  in  space  and  time  from  a  living  creature, 
especially  a  human  creature,  may  form  his  environment  even 
more  truly  than  some  of  the  things  close  to  him.  The  things 
with  which  a  man  varies  are  his  genuine  environment.  Thus 
the  activities  of  the  astronomer  vary  with  the  stars  at  which 
he  gazes  or  about  which  he  calculates.  Of  his  immediate 
surroundings,  his  telescope  is  most  intimately  his  environ- 
ment. The  environment  of  an  antiquarian,  as  an  antiquarian, 
consists  of  the  remote  epoch  of  human  life  with  which  he  is 
concerned,  and  the  rehcs,  inscriptions,  etc.,  by  which  he  estab- 
lishes connections  with  that  period. 

In  brief,  the  environment  consists  of  those  conditions  that 
promote  or  hinder,  stimulate  or  inhibit,  the  characteristic 
activities  of  a  living  being.    Water  is  the  environment  of  a 


14  Philosophy  of  Education 

fish  because  it  is  necessary  to  the  fish's  activities — to  its  life. 
The  north  pole  is  a  significant  element  in  the  environment 
of  an  arctic  explorer,  whether  he  succeeds  in  reaching  it  or 
not,  because  it  defines  his  activities,  makes  them  what  they 
distinctively  are.  Just  because  Hfe  signifies  not  bare  passive 
existence  (supposing  there  is  such  a  thing),  but  a  way  of 
acting,  environment  or  medium  signifies  what  enters  into  this 
activity  as  a  sustaining  or  frustrating  condition. 

2,  The  Social  Environment.  —  A  being  whose  activities 
are  associated  with  others  has  a  social  environment.  What 
he  does  and  what  he  can  do  depend  upon  the  expectations, 
demands,  approvals,  and  condemnations  of  others.  A  being 
connected  with  other  beings  cannot  perform  his  own  activities 
without  taking  the  activities  of  others  into  account.  For 
they  are  the  indispensable  conditions  of  the  realization  of 
his  tendencies.  When  he  moves  he  stirs  them  and  recipro- 
cally. We  might  as  well  try  to  imagine  a  business  man  doing 
business,  buying  and  selUng,  aU  by  himself,  as  to  conceive  it 
possible  to  define  the  activities  of  an  individual  in  terms  of 
his  isolated  actions.  The  manufacturer  moreover  is  as  truly 
socially  guided  in  his  activities  when  he  is  laying  plans  in  the 
privacy  of  his  own  countinghouse  as  when  he  is  buying  his 
raw  material  or  selling  his  finished  goods.  Thinking  and 
feeling  that  have  to  do  with  action  in  association  with  others 
is  as  much  a  social  mode  of  behavior  as  is  the  most  overt 
cooperative  or  hostile  act. 

What  we  have  more  especially  to  indicate  is  how  the  social 
medium  nurtures  its  immature  members.  There  is  no  great 
difliculty  in  seeing  how  it  shapes  the  external  habits  of  action. 
Even  dogs  and  horses  have  their  actions  modified  by  associa- 
tion with  human  beings ;  they  form  different  habits  because 
human  beings  are  concerned  with  what  they  do.  Human 
beings  control  animals  by  controlhng  the  natural  stimuli 
which  influence  them ;  by  creating  a  certain  environment  in 
other  words.    Food,  bits  and  bridles,  noises,  vehicles,  are 


Education  as  a  Social  Function  15 

used  to  direct  the  ways  in  which  the  natural  or  instinctive 
responses  of  horses  occur.  By  operating  steadily  to  call  out 
certain  acts,  habits  are  formed  which  function  with  the 
same  uniformity  as  the  original  stimuli.  If  a  rat  is  put  in  a 
maze  and  finds  food  only  by  making  a  given  number  of  turns 
in  a  given  sequence,  his  activity  is  gradually  modified  till  he 
habitually  takes  that  course  rather  than  another  when  he  is 
hungry. 

Human  actions  are  modified  in  a  like  fashion.  A  burnt 
child  dreads  the  fire ;  if  a  parent  arranged  conditions  so  that 
every  time  a  child  touched  a  certain  toy  he  got  burned,  the 
child  would  learn  to  avoid  that  toy  as  automatically  as  he 
avoids  touching  fire.  So  far,  however,  we  are  dealing  with  what 
may  be  called  training  in  distinction  from  educative  teaching. 
The  changes  considered  are  in  outer  action  rather  than  in 
mental  and  emotional  dispositions  of  behavior.  The  dis- 
tinction is  not,  however,  a  sharp  one.  The  child  might 
conceivably  generate  in  time  a  violent  antipathy,  not  only  to 
that  particular  toy,  but  to  the  class  of  toys  resembling  it. 
The  aversion  might  even  persist  after  he  had  forgotten  about 
the  original  burns;  later  on  he  might  even  invent  some 
reason  to  account  for  his  seemingly  irrational  antipathy.  In 
some  cases,  altering  the  external  habit  of  action  by  changing 
the  environment  to  affect  the  stimuli  to  action  wiU  also  alter 
the  mental  disposition  concerned  in  the  action.  Yet  this 
does  not  always  happen ;  a  person  trained  to  dodge  a  threaten- 
ing blow,  dodges  automatically  with  no  corresponding  thought 
or  emotion.  We  have  to  find,  then,  some  differentia  of  training 
from  education. 

A  clew  may  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  horse  does  not  really 
share  in  the  social  use  to  which  his  action  is  put.  Some  one 
else  uses  the  horse  to  secure  a  result  which  is  advantageous 
by  making  it  advantageous  to  the  horse  to  perform  the  act  — ■ 
he  gets  food,  etc.  But  the  horse,  presumably,  does  not  get 
any  new  interest.    He  remains  interested  in  food,  not  in  the 


1 6  Philosophy  of  Edu^aHon 

service  he  is  /endering.  He  is  not  a  partner  in  a  shared  activ- 
ity. Were  he  to  become  a  copartner,  he  would,  in  engaging 
in  the  conjoint  activity,  have  the  same  interest  in  its  accom- 
plishment which  others  have.  He  would  share  their  ideas 
and  emotions. 

Now  in  many  cases  —  too  many  cases  —  the  activity  of  the 
immature  human  being  is  simply  played  upon  to  secure  habits 
which  are  useful.  He  is  trained  like  an  animal  rather  than 
educated  like  a  human  being.  His  instincts  remain  attached 
to  their  original  objects  of  pain  or  pleasure.  But  to  get  happi- 
ness or  to  a.void  the  pain  of  failure  he  has  to  act  in  a  way  agree- 
able to  others.  In  other  cases,  he  really  shares  or  participates 
in  the  common  activity.  In  this  case,  his  original  impulse  is 
modified.  He  not  merely  acts  in  a  way  agreeing  with  the 
actions  of  others,  but,  in  so  acting,  the  same  ideas  and  emo- 
tions are  aroused  in  him  that  animate  the  others.  A  tribe, 
let  us  say,  is  warlike.  The  successes  for  which  it  strives,  the 
achievements  upon  which  it  sets  store,  are  connected  with 
fighting  and  victory.  The  presence  of  this  medium  incites 
belHcose  exhibitions  in  a  boy,  first  in  games,  then  in  fact 
when  he  is  strong  enough.  As  he  fights  he  wins  approval  and 
advancement;  as  he  refrains,  he  is  disliked,  ridiculed,  shut 
out  from  favorable  recognition.  It  is  not  surprising  that 
his  original  belligerent  tendencies  and  ejnotions  are  strength- 
ened at  the  expense  of  others,  and  that  his  ideas  turn  to  things 
connected  with  war.  Only  in  this  way  can  he  become  fully 
a  recognized  member  of  his  group.  Thus  his  mental  habitudes 
are  gradually  assimilated  to  those  of  his  group. 

If  we  formulate  the  principle  involved  in  this  illustration, 
we  shall  perceive  that  the  social  medium  neither  implants 
certain  desires  and  ideas  directly,  nor  yet  merely  establishes 
certain  purely  muscular  habits  of  action,  like  *  instinctively ' 
winking  or  dodging  a  blow.  Setting  up  conditions  which 
stimulate  certain  visible  and  tangible  ways  of  acting  is  the 
first  step.     Making  the  individual  a  sharer  or  partner  in  the 


Education  as  a  Social  Function  17 

associated  activity  so  that  he  feels  its  success  as  his  success, 
its  failure  as  his  failure,  is  the  completing  step.  As  soon  as  he 
is  possessed  by  the  emotional  attitude  of  the  group,  he  will 
be  alert  to  recognize  the  special  ends  at  which  it  aims  and  the 
means  employed  to  secure  success.  His  beliefs  and  ideas,  in 
other  words,  will  take  a  form  similar  to  those  of  others  in  the 
group.  He  will  also  achieve  pretty  much  the  same  stock  of 
knowledge  since  that  knowledge  is  an  ingredient  of  his  habit- 
ual pursuits. 

The  importance  of  language  in  gaining  knowledge  is  doubt- 
less the  chief  cause  of  the  common  notion  that  knowledge 
may  be  passed  directly  from  one  to  another.  It  almost  seems 
as  if  all  we  have  to  do  to  convey  an  idea  into  the  mind  of  an- 
other is  to  convey  a  sound  into  his  ear.  Thus  imparting 
knowledge  gets  assimilated  to  a  purely  physical  process.  But 
learning  from  language  will  be  found,  when  analyzed,  to  con- 
firm the  principle  just  laid  down.  It  would  probably  be 
admitted  with  httle  hesitation  that  a  child  gets  the  idea  of, 
say,  a  hat  by  using  it  as  other  persons  do;  by  covering  the 
head  with  it,  giving  it  to  others  to  wear,  having  it  put  on  by 
others  when  going  out,  etc.  But  it  may  be  asked  how  this 
principle  of  shared  activity  applies  to  getting  through  speech 
or  reading  the  idea  of,  say,  a  Greek  helmet,  where  no  direct 
use  of  any  kind  enters  in.  What  shared  activity  is  there  in 
learning  from  books  about  the  discovery  of  America? 

Since  language  tends  to  become  the  chief  instrument  of 
learning  about  many  things,  let  us  see  how  it  works.  The 
baby  begins  of  course  with  mere  sounds,  noises,  and  tones 
having  no  meaning,  expressing,  that  is,  no  idea.  Sounds 
are  just  one  kind  of  stimulus  to  direct  response,  some  having  a 
soothing  effect,  others  tending  to  make  one  jump,  and  so  on. 
The  sound  h-a-t  would  remain  as  meaningless  as  a  sound  in 
Choctaw,  a  seemingly  inarticulate  grimt,  if  it  were  not  ut- 
tered in  connection  with  an  action  which  is  participated  in  by 
a  number  of  people.     When  the  mother  is  taking  the  infant 


i8  Philosophy  of  Edtccation 

out  of  doors,  she  says  '  hat '  as  she  puts  something  on  the 
baby's  head.  Being  taken  out  becomes  an  interest  to  th^ 
child ;  mother  and  child  not  only  go  out  with  each  other  phys- 
ically, but  both  are  concerned  in  the  going  out;  they  enjoy 
it  in  common.  By  conjunction  with  the  other  factors  in 
activity  the  sound  '  hat '  soon  gets  the  same  meaning  for  the 
child  that  it  has  for  the  parent;  it  becomes  a  sign  of  the 
activity  into  which  it  enters.  The  bare  fact  that  language 
consists  of  sounds  which  are  mutually  intelligible  is  enough 
of  itself  to  show  that  its  meaning  depends  upon  connectioi? 
with  a  shared  experience. 

In  short,  the  sound  h-a-t  gains  meaning  in  precisely  the 
same  way  that  the  thing  '  hat '  gains  it,  by  being  used  in  a 
given  way.  And  they  acquire  the  same  meaning  with  the 
child  which  they  have  with  the  adult  because  they  are  used 
in  a  common  experience  by  both.  The  guarantee  for  the 
same  manner  of  use  is  found  in  the  fact  that  the  thing  and  the 
sound  are  first  employed  in  a  joint  activity,  as  a  means  of 
setting  up  an  active  connection  between  the  child  and  a 
grown-up.  Similar  ideas  or  meanings  spring  up  because  both 
persons  are  engaged  as  partners  in  an  action  where  what  each 
does  depends  upon  and  influences  what  the  other  does.  If 
two  savages  were  engaged  in  a  joint  hunt  for  game,  and  a 
certain  signal  meant  *  move  to  the  right '  to  the  one  who 
uttered  it,  and  *  move  to  the  left '  to  the  one  who  heard  it, 
they  obviously  could  not  successfully  carry  on  their  hunt 
together.  Understanding  one  another  means  that  objects, 
including  sounds,  have  the  same  value  for  both  with  respect 
to  carrying  on  a  common  pursuit. 

After  sounds  have  got  meaning  through  connection  with 
other  things  employed  in  a  joint  undertaking,  they  can  be 
used  in  connection  with  other  like  sounds  to  develop  new 
meanings,  precisely  as  the  things  for  which  they  stand  are 
combined.  Thus  the  words  in  which  a  child  learns  about, 
say,  the  Greek  helmet  originally  got  a  meaning  (or  were 


Education  as  a  Social  Function  ig 

understood)  by  use  in  an  action  having  a  common  interest 
and  end.  They  now  arouse  a  new  meaning  by  inciting  the 
one  who  hears  or  reads  to  rehearse  imaginatively  the  activities 
in  which  the  hehnet  has  its  use.  For  the  time  being,  the  one 
who  understands  the  words  '  Greek  hehnet '  becomes  men- 
tally a  partner  with  those  who  used  the  helmet.  He  engages, 
through  his  imagination,  in  a  shared  activity.  It  is  not  easy 
to  get  the  full  meaning  of  words.  Most  persons  probably 
stop  with  the  idea  that  '  helmet '  denotes  a  queer  kind  of 
headgear  a  people  called  the  Greeks  once  wore.  We  conclude, 
accordingly,  that  the  use  of  language  to  convey  and  acquire 
ideas  is  an  extension  and  refinement  of  the  principle  that 
things  gain  meaning  by  being  used  in  a  shared  experience  or 
joint  action;  in  no  sense  does  it  contravene  that  principle. 
When  words  do  not  enter  as  factors  into  a  shared  situation, 
either  overtly  or  imaginatively,  they  operate  as  pure  physical 
stimuK,  not  as  having  a  meaning  or  intellectual  value.  They 
set  activity  running  in  a  given  groove,  but  there  is  no  accom- 
panying conscious  purpose  or  meaning.  Thus,  for  example, 
the  plus  sign  may  be  a  stimulus  to  perform  the  act  of  writing 
one  number  under  another  and  adding  the  numbers,  but  the 
oerson  formiug  the  act  will  operate  much  as  an  automaton 
would  unless  he  realizes  the  meaning  of  what  he  does. 

3.  The  Social  Medium  as  Educative.  —  Our  net  result 
thus  far  is  that  social  environment  forms  the  mental  and 
emotional  disposition  of  behavior  in  individuals  by  engaging 
them  in  activities  that  arouse  and  strengthen  certain  im- 
pulses, that  have  certain  purposes  and  entail  certain  conse- 
quences. A  child  growing  up  in  a  family  of  musicians  will 
inevitably  have  whatever  capacities  he  has  in  music  stimu- 
lated, and,  relatively,  stimulated  more  than  other  impulses 
which  might  have  been  awakened  in  another  environment. 
Save  as  he  takes  an  interest  in  music  and  gains  a  certain  com- 
petency in  it,  he  is  *  out  of  it ' ;  he  is  unable  to  share  in  the 
life  of  the  group  to  which  he  belongs.    Some  kinds  of  par- 


20  Philosophy  of  Education 

ticipation  in  the  life  of  those  with  whom  the  individual  is 
connected  are  inevitable;  with  respect  to  them,  the  social 
environment  exercises  an  educative  or  formative  influence 
unconsciously  and  apart  from  any  set  purpose. 

In  savage  and  barbarian  communities,  such  direct  partici- 
pation (constituting  the  indirect  or  incidental  education  of 
which  we  have  spoken)  furnishes  almost  the  sole  influence 
for  rearing  the  young  into  the  practices  and  beliefs  of  the 
group.  Even  in  present-day  societies,  it  furnishes  the  basic 
nurture  of  even  the  most  insistently  schooled  youth.  In 
accord  with  the  interests  and  occupations  of  the  group,  cer- 
tain things  become  objects  of  high  esteem;  others  of  aver- 
sion. Association  does  not  create  impulses  of  affection  and 
dislike,  but  it  furnishes  the  objects  to  which  they  attach  them- 
selves. The  way  our  group  or  class  does  things  tends  to  deter- 
mine the  proper  objects  of  attention,  and  thus  to  prescribe 
the  directions  and  limits  of  observation  and  memory.  What 
is  strange  or  foreign  (that  is  to  say  outside  the  activities  of 
the  groups)  tends  to  be  morally  forbidden  and  intellectually 
suspect.  It  seems  almost  incredible  to  us,  for  example,  that 
things  which  we  know  very  well  could  have  escaped  recogni- 
tion in  past  ages.  We  incline  to  account  for  it  by  attributing 
congenital  stupidity  to  our  forerunners  and  by  assuming 
superior  native  intelligence  on  our  own  part.  But  the  ex- 
planation is  that  their  modes  of  Hfe  did  not  call  for  attention 
to  such  facts,  but  held  their  minds  riveted  to  other  things. 
Just  as  the  senses  require  sensible  objects  to  stimulate  them, 
so  our  powers  of  observation,  recollection,  and  imagination 
do  not  work  spontaneously,  but  are  set  in  motion  by  the 
demands  set  up  by  current  social  occupations.  The  main 
texture  of  disposition  is  formed,  independently  of  schooling, 
by  such  influences.  What  conscious,  deliberate  teaching  can 
do  is  at  most  to  free  the  capacities  thus  formed  for  fuller  ex- 
ercise, to  purge  them  of  some  of  their  grossness,  and  to  furnish 
objects  which  make  their  activity  more  productive  of  meaning. 


Education  as  a  Social  Function  21 

While  this  "  unconscious  influence  of  the  environment  "  is 
so  subtle  and  pervasive  that  it  affects  every  fiber  of  character 
and  mind,  it  may  be  worth  while  to  specify  a  few  directions 
in  which  its  effect  is  most  marked.  First,  the  habits  of  lan- 
guage. Fundamental  modes  of  speech,  the  bulk  of  the 
vocabulary,  are  formed  in  the  ordinary  intercourse  of  life, 
carried  on  not  as  a  set  means  of  instruction  but  as  a  social 
necessity.  The  babe  acquires,  as  we  well  say,  the  mother 
tongue.  While  speech  habits  thus  contracted  may  be  cor- 
rected or  even  displaced  by  conscious  teaching,  yet,  in  times 
of  excitement,  intentionally  acquired  modes  of  speech  often 
fall  away,  and  individuals  relapse  into  their  really  native 
tongue.  Secondly,  manners.  Example  is  notoriously  more 
potent  than  precept.  Good  manners  come,  as  we  say,  from 
good  breeding  or  rather  are  good  breeding ;  and  breeding  is 
acquired  by  habitual  action,  in  response  to  habitual  stimuli, 
not  by  conveying  information.  Despite  the  never  ending 
play  of  conscious  correction  and  instruction,  the  surrounding 
atmosphere  and  spirit  is  in  the  end  the  chief  agent  in  forming 
manners.  And  manners  are  but  minor  morals.  Moreover  in 
major  morals,  conscious  instruction  is  likely  to  be  efficacious 
only  in  the  degree  in  which  it  falls  in  with  the  general  "  walk 
and  conversation  "  of  those  who  constitute  the  child's  social 
environment.  Thirdly,  good  taste  and  aesthetic  appreciation. 
If  the  eye  is  constantly  greeted  by  harmonious  objects,  having 
elegance  of  form  and  color,  a  standard  of  taste  naturally 
grows  up.  The  effect  of  a  tawdry,  unarranged,  and  over- 
decorated  environment  works  for  the  deterioration  of  taste, 
just  as  meager  and  barren  surroundings  starve  out  the  desire 
for  beauty.  Against  such  odds,  conscious  teaching  can  hardly 
do  more  than  convey  second-hand  information  as  to  what 
others  think.  Such  taste  never  becomes  spontaneous  and 
personally  engrained,  but  remains  a  labored  reminder  of  what 
those  think  to  whom  one  has  been  taught  to  look  up.  To 
say  that  the  deeper  standards  of  judgments  of  value  are  framed 


^2  Philosophy  of  Education 

by  the  situations  into  which  a  person  habitually  enters  is 
not  so  much  to  mention  a  fourth  point,  as  it  is  to  point  out  a 
fusion  of  those  already  mentioned.  We  rarely  recognize 
the  extent  in  which  our  conscious  estimates  of  what  is  worth 
while  and  what  is  not,  are  due  to  standards  of  which  we  are 
not  conscious  at  all.  But  in  general  it  may  be  said  that 
the  things  which  we  take  for  granted  without  inquiry  or  re- 
flection are  just  the  things  which  determine  our  conscious 
thinking  and  decide  our  conclusions.  And  these  habitudes 
which  lie  below  the  level  of  reflection  are  just  those  which 
have  been  formed  in  the  constant  give  and  take  of  relation- 
ship with  others. 

4.  The  School  as  a  Special  Environment.  —  The  chief 
importance  of  this  foregoing  statement  of  the  educative  pro- 
cess which  goes  on  willynilly  is  to  lead  us  to  note  that  the 
only  way  in  which  adults  consciously  control  the  kind  of  edu- 
cation which  the  immature  get  is  by  controlling  the  environ- 
ment in  which  they  act,  and  hence  think  and  feel.  We  never 
educate  directly,  but  indirectly  by  means  of  the  environment. 
Whether  we  permit  chance  environments  to  do  the  work,  or 
whether  we  design  environments  for  the  purpose  makes  a 
great  difference.  And  any  environment  is  a  chance  environ- 
ment so  far  as  its  educative  influence  is  concerned  unless  it 
has  been  deliberately  regulated  with  reference  to  its  educative 
effect.  An  intelligent  home  differs  from  an  unintelligent  one 
chiefly  in  that  the  habits  of  life  and  intercourse  which  prevail 
are  chosen,  or  at  least  colored,  by  the  thought  of  their  bearing 
upon  the  development  of  children.  But  schools  remain,  of 
course,  the  typical  instance  of  environments  framed  with 
express  reference  to  influencing  the  mental  and  moral  dis- 
position of  their  members. 

Roughly  speaking,  they  come  into  existence  when  social 
traditions  are  so  complex  that  a  considerable  part  of  the  social 
store  is  committed  to  writing  and  transmitted  through  written 
symbols.    Written  symbols  are  even  more  artificial  or  con- 


Education  as  a  Social  Function  23 

ventional  than  spoken ;  they  cannot  be  picked  up  in  accidental 
intercourse  with  others.  In  addition,  the  written  form  tends 
to  select  and  record  matters  which  are  comparatively  foreign 
to  everyday  life.  The  achievements  accumulated  from  genera- 
tion to  generation  are  deposited  in  it  even  though  some  of 
them  have  fallen  temporarily  out  of  use.  Consequently  as 
soon  as  a  community  depends  to  any  considerable  extent  upon 
what  lies  beyond  its  own  territory  and  its  own  immediate 
generation,  it  must  rely  upon  the  set  agency  of  schools  to 
insure  adequate  transmission  of  all  its  resources.  To  take  an 
obvious  illustration :  The  life  of  the  ancient  Greeks  and 
Romans  has  profoundly  influenced  our  own,  and  yet  the  ways 
in  which  they  affect  us  do  not  present  themselves  on  the  sur- 
face of  our  ordinary  experiences.  In  similar  fashion,  peoples 
still  existing,  but  remote  in  space,  British,  Germans,  Italians, 
directly  concern  our  own  social  affairs,  but  the  nature  of  the 
interaction  cannot  be  understood  without  explicit  statement 
and  attention.  In  precisely  similar  fashion,  our  daily  associa- 
tions cannot  be  trusted  to  make  clear  to  the  young  the  part 
played  in  our  activities  by  remote  physical  energies,  and  by 
invisible  structures.  Hence  a  special  mode  of  social  inter- 
course is  instituted,  the  school,  to  care  for  such  matters. 

This  mode  of  association  has  three  functions  sufl&ciently 
specific,  as  compared  with  ordinary  associations  of  life,  to  be 
noted.  First,  a  complex  civilization  is  too  complex  to  be 
assimilated  in  toto.  It  has  to  be  broken  up  into  portions,  as 
it  were,  and  assimilated  piecemeal,  in  a  gradual  and  graded 
way.  The  relationships  of  our  present  social  life  are  so 
numerous  and  so  interwoven  that  a  child  placed  in  the  most 
favorable  position  could  not  readily  share  in  many  of  the  most 
important  of  them.  Not  sharing  in  them,  their  meaning 
would  not  be  communicated  to  him,  would  not  become  a 
part  of  his  own  mental  disposition.  There  would  be  no  see- 
ing the  trees  because  of  the  forest.  Business,  politics,  art, 
science,  religion,  would  make  all  at  once  a  clamor  for  atten- 


24  Philosophy  of  Education 

tion;  confusion  would  be  the  outcome.  The  first  office  of 
^e  social  organ  we  call  the  school  is  to  provide  a  simplified 
ei  onment.  It  selects  the  features  which  are  fairly  funda- 
mcL  vl  and  capable  of  being  responded  to  by  the  young. 
Then  it  establishes  a  progressive  order,  using  the  factors  first 
acquired  as  means  of  gaining  insight  into  what  is  more  com- 
plicated. 

In  the  second  place,  it  is  the  business  of  the  school  envi- 
ronment to  eHminate,  so  far  as  possible,  the  unworthy  features 
of  the  existing  environment  from  influence  upon  mental  habi- 
tudes. It  estabUshes  a  purified  medium  of  action.  Selec- 
tion  aims  not  only  at  simpHfying  but  at  weeding  out  what  is 
undesirable.  Every  society  gets  encumbered  with  what  is 
trivial,  with  dead  wood  from  the  past,  and  with  what  is  posi- 
tively perverse.  The  school  has  the  duty  of  omitting  such 
things  from  the  environment  which  it  supplies,  and  thereby 
doing  what  it  can  to  counteract  their  influence  in  the  ordinary 
social  environment.  By  selecting  the  best  for  its  exclusive 
use,  it  strives  to  reenf orce  the  power  of  this  best.  As  a  society 
becomes  more  enhghtened,  it  realizes  that  it  is  responsible 
not  to  transmit  and  conserve  the  whole  of  its  existing  achieve- 
ments, but  only  such  as  make  for  a  better  future  society.  The 
school  is  its  chief  agency  for  the  accomplishment  of  this  end. 

In  the  third  place,  it  is  the  office  of  the  school  environment 
to  balance  the  various  elements  in  the  social  environment, 
and  to  see  to  it  that  each  individual  gets  an  opportunity  to 
escape  from  the  Hmitations  of  the  social  group  in  which  he 
was  born,  and  to  come  into  Hving  contact  with  a  broader 
environment.  Such  words  as  '  society  '  and  '  community '  are 
likely  to  be  misleading,  for  they  have  a  tendency  to  make  us 
think  there  is  single  thing  corresponding  to  the  single  word. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  modern  society  is  many  societies  more 
or  less  loosely  connected.  Each  household  with  its  imme- 
diate extension  of  friends  makes  a  society;  the  village  or 
street  group  of  playmates  is  a  community;    each  business 


Ediication  as  a  Social  Function  25 

group,  each  club,  is  another.  Passing  beyond  these  more 
intimate  groups,  there  is  in  a  country  Kke  our  own  a  variety 
of  races,  religious  affihations,  economic  divisions.  Inside 
the  modern  city,  in  spite  of  its  nominal  political  unity,  there 
are  probably  more  communities,  more  differing  customs, 
traditions,  aspirations,  and  forms  of  government  or  control, 
than  existed  in  an  entire  continent  at  an  earHer  epoch. 

Each  such  group  exercises  a  formative  influence  on  the 
active  dispositions  of  its  members.  A  cHque,  a  club,  a  gang, 
a  Fagin's  household  of  thieves,  the  prisoners  in  a  jail,  provide 
educative  environments  for  those  who  enter  into  their  collec- 
tive or  conjoint  activities,  as  truly  as  a  church,  a  labor  union, 
a  business  partnership,  or  a  pohtical  party.  Each  of  them  is  a 
mode  of  associated  or  community  life,  quite  as  much  as  is  a 
family,  a  town,  or  a  state.  There  are  also  communities  whose 
members  have  Httle  or  no  direct  contact  with  one  another, 
like  the  guild  of  artists,  the  republic  of  letters,  the  members 
of  the  professional  learned  class  scattered  over  the  face  of 
the  earth.  For  they  have  aims  in  common,  and  the  activity 
of  each  member  is  directly  modij5,ed  by  knowledge  of  what 
others  are  doing. 

In  the  olden  times,  the  diversity  of  groups  was  largely  a 
geographical  matter.  There  were  many  societies,  but  each, 
within  its  own  territory,  was  comparatively  homogeneous. 
But  with  the  development  of  commerce,  transportation,  inter- 
communication, and  emigration,  countries  like  the  United 
States  are  composed  of  a  combination  of  different  groups  with 
different  traditional  customs.  It  is  this  situation  which  has, 
perhaps  more  than  any  other  one  cause,  forced  the  demand 
for  an  educational  institution  which  shall  provide  something 
like  a  homogeneous  and  balanced  environment  for  the  young. 
Only  in  this  way  can  the  centrifugal  forces  set  up  by  juxtaposi- 
tion of  different  groups  within  one  and  the  same  pohtical  unit 
be  counteracted.  The  intermingling  in  the  school  of  youth  of 
different  races,  differing  religions,  and  unlike  customs  creates 


26  Philosophy  of  Education 

for  all  a  new  and  broader  environment.  Common  subject 
matter  accustoms  all  to  a  unity  of  outlook  upon  a  broader 
horizon  than  is  visible  to  the  members  of  any  group  while 
it  is  isolated.  The  assimilative  force  of  the  American  public 
school  is  eloquent  testimony  to  the  efl&cacy  of  the  common  and 
balanced  appeal. 

The  school  has  the  function  also  of  coordinating  within 
the  disposition  of  each  individual  the  diverse  influences  of  the 
various  social  environments  into  which  he  enters.  One  code 
prevails  in  the  family ;  another,  on  the  street ;  a  third,  in  the 
workshop  or  store ;  a  fourth,  in  the  reUgious  association.  As 
a  person  passes  from  one  of  the  environments  to  another,  he 
is  subjected  to  antagonistic  pulls,  and  is  in  danger  of  being 
spht  into  a  being  having  different  standards  of  judgment  and 
emotion  for  different  occasions.  This  danger  imposes  upon 
the  school  a  steadying  and  integrating  office. 

Summary.  —  The  development  within  the  young  of  the 
attitudes  and  dispositions  necessary  to  the  continuous  and 
progressive  life  of  a  society  cannot  take  place  by  direct  con- 
veyance of  beliefs,  emotions,  and  knowledge.  It  takes  place 
through  the  intermediary  of  the  environment.  The  environ- 
ment consists  of  the  sum  total  of  conditions  which  are  con- 
cerned in  the  execution  of  the  activity  characteristic  of  a 
living  being.  The  social  environment  consists  of  all  the 
activities  of  fellow  beings  that  are  bound  up  in  the  carrying 
on  of  the  activities  of  any  one  of  its  members.  It  is  truly 
educative  in  its  effect  in  the  degree  in  which  an  individual 
shares  or  participates  in  some  conjoint  activity.  By  doing 
his  share  in  the  associated  activity,  the  individual  appro- 
priates the  purpose  which  actuates  it,  becomes  familiar  with 
its  methods  and  subject  matters,  acquires  needed  skill,  and 
is  saturated  with  its  emotional  spirit. 

The  deeper  and  more  intimate  educative  formation  of 
disposition  comes,  without  conscious  intent,  as  the  young 
gradually  partake  of  the  activities  of  the  various  groups  to 


Edtication  as  a  Social  Function  27 

which  they  may  belong.  As  a  society  becomes  more  complex, 
however,  it  is  found  necessary  to  provide  a  special  social  envi- 
ronment which  shall  especially  look  after  nurturing  the  capaci- 
ties of  the  immature.  Three  of  the  more  important  funC' 
tions  of  this  special  environment  are :  simpHfying  and  order- 
ing the  factors  of  the  disposition  it  is  wished  to  develop ; 
purifying  and  idealizing  the  existing  social  customs ;  creating 
a  wider  and  better  balanced  environment  than  that  by  which 
the  young  would  be  likely,  if  left  to  themselves,  to  be  influenced. 


CHAPTER  in 

EDUCATION  AS  DIRECTION 

1.  The  Environment  as  Directive.  —  We  now  pass  to  one 
of  the  special  forms  which  the  general  function  of  education 
assumes :  namely,  that  of  direction,  control,  or  guidance.  Of 
these  three  words,  direction,  control,  and  guidance,  the  last 
best  conveys  the  idea  of  assisting  through  cooperation  the 
natural  capacities  of  the  individuals  guided ;  control  conveys 
rather  the  notion  of  an  energy  brought  to  bear  from  without 
and  meeting  some  resistance  from  the  one  controlled ;  direction 
is  a  more  neutral  term  and  suggests  the  fact  that  the  active 
tendencies  of  those  directed  are  led  in  a  certain  continuous 
course,  instead  of  dispersing  aimlessly.  Direction  expresses 
the  basic  function,  which  tends  at  one  extreme  to  become  a 
guiding  assistance  and  at  another,  a  regulation  or  ruling. 
But  in  any  case,  we  must  carefully  avoid  a  meaning  sometimes 
read  into  the  term '  control. '  It  is  sometimes  assumed,  explicitly 
or  unconsciously,  that  an  individual's  tendencies  are  naturally 
purely  individuaUstic  or  egoistic,  and  thus  antisocial.  Con- 
trol then  denotes  the  process  by  which  he  is  brought  to  sub- 
ordinate his  natural  impulses  to  public  or  common  ends. 
Since,  by  conception,  his  own  nature  is  quite  alien  to  this 
process  and  opposes  it  rather  than  helps  it,  control  has  in  this 
view  a  flavor  of  coercion  or  compulsion  about  it.  Systems  of 
government  and  theories  of  the  state  have  been  built  upon 
this  notion,  and  it  has  seriously  affected  educational  ideas  and 
practices.  But  there  is  no  ground  for  any  such  view.  Indi- 
viduals are  certainly  interested,  at  times,  in  having  their  own 
way,  and  their  own  way  may  go  contrary  to  the  ways  of  others. 

28 


Education  as  Direction  iq 

But  they  are  also  interested,  and  chiefly  interested  upon  the 
whole,  in  entering  into  the  activities  of  others  and  taking  part 
in  conjoint  and  cooperative  doings.  Otherwise,  no  such  thing 
as  a  community  would  be  possible.  And  there  would  not 
even  be  any  one  interested  in  furnishing  the  poUceman  to  keep 
a  semblance  of  harmony  unless  he  thought  that  thereby  he 
could  gain  some  personal  advantage.  Control,  in  truth, 
means  only  an  emphatic  form  of  direction  of  powers,  and 
covers  the  regulation  gained  by  an  individual  through  his  own 
efforts  quite  as  much  as  that  brought  about  when  others  take 
the  lead. 

In  general,  every  stimulus  directs  activity.  It  does  not 
simply  excite  it  or  stir  it  up,  but  directs  it  toward  an  object. 
Put  the  other  way  around,  a  response  is  not  just  a  re-action, 
a  protest,  as  it  were,  against  being  disturbed ;  it  is,  as  the  word 
indicates,  an  answer.  It  meets  the  stimulus,  and  corresponds 
with  it.  There  is  an  adaptation  of  the  stimulus  and  response 
to  each  other.  A  light  is  the  stimulus  to  the  eye  to  see  some- 
thing, and  the  business  of  the  eye  is  to  see.  If  the  eyes  are 
open  and  there  is  light,  seeing  occurs ;  the  stimulus  is  but  a 
condition  of  the  fulfillment  of  the  proper  function  of  the 
organ,  not  an  outside  interruption.  To  some  extent,  then,  all 
direction  or  control  is  a  guiding  of  activity  to  its  own  end ;  it 
is  an  assistance  in  doing  fully  what  some  organ  is  already 
tending  to  do. 

This  general  statement  needs,  however,  to  be  qualified  in 
two  respects.  In  the  first  place,  except  in  the  case  of  a  small 
number  of  instincts,  the  stimuU  to  which  an  immature  human 
being  is  subject  are  not  sufficiently  definite  to  call  out,  in  the 
beginning,  specific  responses.  There  is  always  a  great  deal  of 
superfluous  energy  aroused.  This  energy  may  be  wasted, 
going  aside  from  the  point ;  it  may  also  go  against  the  success- 
ful performance  of  an  act.  It  does  harm  by  getting  in  the 
way.  Compare  the  behavior  of  a  beginner  in  riding  a  bicycle 
with  that  of  the  expert.     There  is  little  axis  of  direction  in  the 


30  Philosophy  of  Education 

energies  put  forth ;  they  are  largely  dispersive  and  centrifugal 
Direction  involves  a  focusing  and  fixating  of  action  in  order 
that  it  may  be  truly  a  response,  and  this  requires  an  elimina- 
tion of  unnecessary  and  confusing  movements.  In  the  second 
place,  although  no  activity  can  be  produced  in  which  the  per- 
son does  not  cooperate  to  some  extent,  yet  a  response  may  be 
of  a  kind  which  does  not  fit  into  the  sequence  and  continuity  of 
action.  A  person  boxing  may  dodge  a  particular  blow  success- 
fully, but  in  such  a  way  as  to  expose  himself  the  next  instant 
to  a  still  harder  blow.  Adequate  control  means  that  the 
successive  acts  are  brought  into  a  continuous  order ;  each  act 
not  only  meets  its  immediate  stimulus  but  helps  the  acts  which 
follow. 

In  short,  direction  is  both  simultaneous  and  successive. 
At  a  given  time,  it  requires  that,  from  all  the  tendencies  that 
are  partially  called  out,  those  be  selected  which  center  energy 
upon  the  point  of  need.  Successively,  it  requires  that  each 
act  be  balanced  with  those  which  precede  and  come  after,  so 
that  order  of  activity  is  achieved.  Focusing  and  ordering  are 
thus  the  two  aspects  of  direction,  one  spatial,  the  other  temporal. 
The  first  insures  hitting  the  mark;  the  second  keeps  the 
balance  required  for  further  action.  Obviously,  it  is  not 
possible  to  separate  them  in  practice  as  we  have  distinguished 
them  in  idea.  Activity  must  be  centered  at  a  given  time  in 
such  a  way  as  to  prepare  for  what  comes  next.  The  problem 
of  the  immediate  response  is  compHcated  by  one's  having  to 
be  on  the  lookout  for  future  occurrences. 

Two  conclusions  emerge  from  these  general  statements.  On 
the  one  hand,  purely  external  direction  is  impossible.  The 
environment  can  at  most  only  supply  stimuli  to  call  out  re- 
sponses. These  responses  proceed  from  tendencies  already 
possessed  by  the  individual.  Even  when  a  person  is  frightened 
by  threats  into  doing  something,  the  threats  work  only  be- 
cause the  person  has  an  instinct  of  fear.  If  he  has  not,  or  if, 
though  having  it,  it  is  under  his  own  control,  the  threat  has 


Education  as  Direction  31 

no  more  influence  upon  him  than  light  has  in  causing  a  person 
to  see  who  has  no  eyes.  While  the  customs  and  rules  of  adults 
furnish  stimuU  which  direct  as  well  as  evoke  the  activities  of 
the  young,  the  young,  after  all,  participate  in  the  direction 
which  their  actions  finally  take.  In  the  strict  sense,  nothing 
can  be  forced  upon  them  or  into  them.  To  overlook  this  fact 
means  to  distort  and  pervert  human  nature.  To  take  into 
account  the  contribution  made  by  the  existing  instincts  and 
habits  of  those  directed  is  to  direct  them  economically  and 
wisely.  Speaking  accurately,  all  direction  is  but  r^'-direction ; 
it  shifts  the  activities  already  going  on  into  another  channel. 
Unless  one  is  cognizant  of  the  energies  which  are  already  in  op- 
eration, one's  attempts  at  direction  will  almost  surely  go  amiss. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  control  afforded  by  the  customs  and 
regulations  of  others  may  be  short-sighted.  It  may  accom- 
plish its  immediate  effect,  but  at  the  expense  of  throwing  the 
subsequent  action  of  the  person  out  of  balance.  A  threat 
may,  for  example,  prevent  a  person  from  doing  something  to 
which  he  is  naturally  inclined  by  arousing  fear  of  disagreeable 
consequences  if  he  persists.  But  he  may  be  left  in  the  posi- 
tion which  exposes  him  later  on  to  influences  whirh  will  lead 
him  to  do  even  worse  things.  His  instincts  of  cunning  and 
slyness  may  be  aroused,  so  that  things  henceforth  appeal  to 
him  on  the  side  of  evasion  and  trickery  more  than  would  other- 
wise have  been  the  case.  Those  engaged  in  directing  the 
actions  of  others  are  always  in  danger  of  overlooking  the  im- 
portance of  the  sequential  development  of  those  they  direct. 

2.  Modes  of  Social  Direction.  —  Adults  are  naturally  most 
conscious  of  directing  the  conduct  of  others  when  they  are 
immediately  aiming  so  to  do.  As  a  rule,  they  have  such  an  aim 
consciously  when  they  find  themselves  resisted ;  when  others 
are  doing  things  they  do  not  wish  them  to  do.  But  the  more 
permanent  and  influential  modes  of  control  are  those  which 
operate  from  moment  to  moment  continuously  without  such 
deliberate  intention  on  our  part. 


32  Philosophy  of  Education 

I.  When  others  are  not  doing  what  we  would  like  them  to 
or  are  threatening  disobedience,  we  are  most  conscious  of  the 
need  of  controlling  them  and  of  the  influences  by  which  they 
are  controlled.  In  such  cases,  our  control  becomes  most 
direct,  and  at  this  point  we  are  most  likely  to  make  the  mis- 
takes just  spoken  of.  We  are  even  Hkely  to  take  the  influence 
of  superior  force  for  control,  forgetting  that  while  we  may  lead 
a  horse  to  water  we  cannot  make  him  drink ;  and  that  while 
we  can  shut  a  man  up  in  a  penitentiary  we  cannot  make  him 
penitent.  In  all  such  cases  of  immediate  action  upon  others, 
we  need  to  discriminate  between  physical  results  and  moral 
results.  A  person  may  be  in  such  a  condition  that  forcible 
feeding  or  enforced  confinement  is  necessary  for  his  own  good. 
A  child  may  have  to  be  snatched  with  roughness  away  from  a 
fire  so  that  he  shall  not  be  burnt.  But  no  improvement  of 
disposition,  no  educative  effect,  need  foUow.  A  harsh  and 
commanding  tone  may  be  effectual  in  keeping  a  child  away 
from  the  fire,  and  the  same  desirable  physical  effect  will  follow 
as  if  he  had  been  snatched  away.  But  there  may  be  no 
more  obedience  of  a  moral  sort  in  one  case  than  in  the  other. 
A  man  can  be  prevented  from  breaking  into  other  persons' 
houses  by  shutting  him  up,  but  shutting  him  up  may  not  alter 
his  disposition  to  commit  burglary.  When  we  confuse  a 
physical  with  an  educative  result,  we  always  lose  the  chance 
of  enlisting  the  person's  own  participating  disposition  in 
getting  the  result  desired,  and  thereby  of  developing  within 
him  an  intrinsic  and  persisting  direction  in  the  right  way. 

In  general,  the  occasion  for  the  more  conscious  acts  of  con- 
trol should  be  limited  to  acts  which  are  so  instinctive  or 
impulsive  that  the  one  performing  them  has  no  means  of  fore- 
seeing their  outcome.  If  a  person  cannot  foresee  the  con- 
sequences of  his  act,  and  is  not  capable  of  understanding  what 
he  is  told  about  its  outcome  by  those  with  more  experience, 
it  is  impossible  for  him  to  guide  his  act  intelligently.  In  such 
a  state,  every  act  is  alike  to  him.     Whatever  moves  him  does 


Education  as  Direction  33 

move  him,  and  that  is  all  there  is  to  it.  In  some  cases,  it  is 
well  to  permit  him  to  experiment,  and  to  discover  the  conse- 
quences for  himself  in  order  that  he  may  act  intelhgently  next 
time  under  similar  circumstances.  But  some  courses  of  action 
are  too  discommoding  and  obnoxious  to  others  to  allow  of  this 
course  being  pursued.  Direct  disapproval  is  now  resorted 
to.  Shaming,  ridicule,  disfavor,  rebuke,  and  punishment  are 
used.  Or  contrary  tendencies  in  the  child  are  appealed  to  to 
divert  him  from  his  troublesome  Hne  of  behavior.  His  sen- 
sitiveness to  approbation,  his  hope  of  winning  favor  by  an 
agreeable  act,  are  made  use  of  to  induce  action  in  another 
direction. 

2.  These  methods  of  control  are  so  obvious  (because  so  in- 
tentionally employed)  that  it  would  hardly  be  worth  while  to 
mention  them  if  it  were  not  that  notice  may  now  be  taken, 
by  way  of  contrast,  of  the  other  more  important  and  per- 
manent mode  of  control.  This  other  method  resides  in  the 
ways  in  which  persons,  with  whom  the  immature  being  is 
associated,  use  things;  the  instrumentahties  with  which  they 
accompHsh  their  own  ends.  The  very  existence  of  the  social 
medium  in  which  an  individual  lives,  moves,  and  has  his 
being  is  the  standing  effective  agency  of  directing  his 
activity. 

This  fact  makes  it  necessary  for  us  to  examine  in  greater 
detail  what  is  meant  by  the  social  environment.  We  are 
given  to  separating  from  each  other  the  physical  and  social 
environments  in  which  we  live.  The  separation  is  responsible 
on  one  hand  for  an  exaggeration  of  the  moral  importance  of 
the  more  direct  or  personal  modes  of  control  of  which  we  have 
been  speaking;  and  on  the  other  hand  for  an  exaggeration, 
in  current  psychology  and  philosophy,  of  the  intellectual  pos- 
sibilities of  contact  with  a  purely  physical  environment. 
There  is  not,  in  fact,  any  such  thing  as  the  direct  influence  of 
one  human  being  on  another  apart  from  use  of  the  physical 
environment  as  an  intermediary.    A  smile,  a  frown,  a  rebuke, 


34  Philosophy  of  Education 

a  word  of  warning  or  encouragement,  all  involve  some  physical 
change.  Otherwise,  the  attitude  of  one  would  not  get  over 
to  alter  the  attitude  of  another.  Comparatively  speaking, 
such  modes  of  influence  may  be  regarded  as  personal.  The 
physical  medium  is  reduced  to  a  mere  means  of  personal  con- 
tact. In  contrast  with  such  direct  modes  of  mutual  influence, 
stand  associations  in  common  pursuits  involving  the  use  of 
things  as  means  and  as  measures  of  results.  Even  if  the 
mother  never  told  her  daughter  to  help  her,  or  never  rebuked 
her  for  not  helping,  the  child  would  be  subjected  to  direction 
in  her  activities  by  the  mere  fact  that  she  was  engaged,  along 
with  the  parent,  in  the  household  hfe.  Imitation,  emulation, 
the  need  of  working  together,  enforce  control. 

If  the  mother  hands  the  child  something  needed,  the  lattel 
must  reach  the  thing  in  order  to  get  it.  Where  there  is  giving 
there  must  be  taking.  The  way  the  child  handles  the  thing 
after  it  is  got,  the  use  to  which  it  is  put,  is  surely  influenced  by 
the  fact  that  the  child  has  watched  the  mother.  When  the 
child  sees  the  parent  looking  for  something,  it  is  as  natural 
for  it  also  to  look  for  the  object  and  to  give  it  over  when  it 
finds  it,  as  it  was,  under  other  circumstances,  to  receive  it. 
Multiply  such  an  instance  by  the  thousand  details  of  daily 
intercourse,  and  one  has  a  picture  of  the  most  permanent 
and  enduring  method  of  giving  direction  to  the  activities  of 
the  young. 

In  saying  this,  we  are  only  repeating  what  was  said  pre- 
viously about  participating  in  a  joint  activity  as  the  chief 
way  of  forming  disposition.  We  have  expHcitly  added,  how- 
ever, the  recognition  of  the  part  played  in  the  joint  activity 
by  the  use  of  things.  The  philosophy  of  learning  has  been 
unduly  dominated  by  a  false  psychology.  It  is  frequently 
stated  that  a  person  learns  by  merely  having  the  qualities  of 
things  impressed  upon  his  mind  through  the  gateway  of  the 
senses.  Having  received  a  store  of  sensory  impressions,  as- 
sociation or  some  power  of  mental  synthesis  is  supposed  to 


Education  as  Direction  35 

combine  them  into  ideas  —  into  things  with  a  meaning.  An 
object,  stone,  orange,  tree,  chair,  is  supposed  to  convey  differ- 
ent impressions  of  color,  shape,  size,  hardness,  smell,  taste, 
etc.,  which  aggregated  together  constitute  the  characteristic 
meaning  of  each  thing.  But  as  matter  of  fact,  it  is  the  char- 
acteristic use  to  which  the  thing  is  put,  because  of  its  specific 
quaUties,  which  suppHes  the  meaning  with  which  it  is  identi- 
fied. A  chair  is  a  thing  which  is  put  to  one  use ;  a  table,  a 
thing  which  is  employed  for  another  purpose ;  an  orange  is  a 
thing  which  costs  so  much,  which  is  grown  in  warm  climes, 
which  is  eaten,  and  when  eaten  has  an  agreeable  odor  and 
refreshing  taste,  etc. 

The  difference  between  an  adjustment  to  a  physical  stimu- 
lus and  a  mental  act  is  that  the  latter  involves  response  to  a 
thing  in  its  meaning;  the  former  does  not.  A  noise  may  make 
me  jump  without  my  mind  being  impHcated.  When  I  hear  a 
noise  and  run  and  get  water  and  put  out  a  blaze,  I  respond 
intelligently;  the  sound  meant  fire,  and  fire  meant  need  of 
being  extinguished.  I  bump  into  a  stone,  and  kick  it  one  side 
purely  physically.  I  put  it  to  one  side  for  fear  some  one  will 
stumble  upon  it,  intelligently ;  I  respond  to  a  meaning  which 
the  thing  has.  I  am  startled  by  a  thunderclap  whether  I 
recognize  it  or  not  —  more  likely,  if  I  do  not  recognize  it. 
But  if  I  say,  either  out  loud  or  to  myself,  that  is  thunder,  I 
respond  to  the  disturbance  as  a  meaning.  My  behavior  has  a 
mental  quaHty.  When  things  have  a  meaning  for  us,  we 
mean  (intend,  propose)  what  we  do :  when  they  do  not,  we 
act  blindly,  unconsciously,  unintelUgently. 

In  both  kinds  of  responsive  adjustment,  our  activities  are 
directed  or  controlled.  But  in  the  merely  blind  response, 
direction  is  also  bhnd.  There  may  be  training,  but  there  is 
no  education.  Repeated  responses  to  recurrent  stimuli  may 
fix  a  habit  of  acting  in  a  certain  way.  All  of  us  have  many 
habits  of  whose  import  we  are  quite  unaware,  since  they  were 
formed  without  our  knowing  what  we  were  about.     Conse- 


36  Philosophy  of  Education 

quently  they  possess  us,  rather  than  we  them.  They  move 
us ;  they  control  us.  Unless  we  become  aware  of  what  they 
accomplish,  and  pass  judgment  upon  the  worth  of  the  result, 
we  do  not  control  them.  A  child  might  be  made  to  bow  every 
time  he  met  a  certain  person  by  pressure  on  his  neck  muscles, 
and  bowing  would  finally  become  automatic.  It  would  not, 
however,  be  an  act  of  recognition  or  deference  on  his  part,  till 
he  did  it  with  a  certain  end  in  view — as  having  a  certain  mean- 
ing. And  not  till  he  knew  what  he  was  about  and  performed 
the  act  for  the  sake  of  its  meaning  could  he  be  said  to  be 
"  brought  up  "  or  educated  to  act  in  a  certain  way.  To  have 
an  idea  of  a  thing  is  thus  not  just  to  get  certain  sensations 
from  it.  It  is  to  be  able  to  respond  to  the  thing  in  view  of  its 
place  in  an  inclusive  scheme  of  action;  it  is  to  foresee  the 
drift  and  probable  consequence  of  the  action  of  the  thing  upon 
us  and  of  our  action  upon  it. 

To  have  the  same  ideas  about  things  which  others  have, 
to  be  like-minded  with  them,  and  thus  to  be  really  members 
of  a  social  group,  is  therefore  to  attach  the  same  meanings  to 
things  and  to  acts  which  others  attach.  Otherwise,  there  is  no 
common  understanding,  and  no  community  life.  But  in  a 
shared  activity,  each  person  refers  what  he  is  doing  to  what 
the  other  is  doing  and  vice-versa.  That  is,  the  activity  of 
each  is  placed  in  the  same  inclusive  situation.  To  pull  at  a 
rope  at  which  others  happen  to  be  pulling  is  not  a  shared  or 
conjoint  activity,  unless  the  pulling  is  done  with  knowledge 
that  others  are  pulling  and  for  the  sake  of  either  helping  or 
hindering  what  they  are  doing.  A  pin  may  pass  in  the  course 
of  its  manufacture  through  the  hands  of  many  persons.  But 
each  may  do  his  part  without  knowledge  of  what  others  do 
or  without  any  reference  to  what  they  do ;  each  may  operate 
simply  for  the  sake  of  a  separate  result  —  his  own  pay.  There 
is,  in  this  case,  no  common  consequence  to  which  the  several 
acts  are  referred,  and  hence  no  genuine  intercourse  or  associa- 
tion, in  spite  of  juxtaposition,  and  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  their 


Education  as  Direction  37 

respective  doings  contribute  to  a  single  outcome.  But  if  each 
views  the  consequences  of  his  own  acts  as  having  a  bearing 
upon  what  others  are  doing  and  takes  into  account  the  conse- 
quences of  their  behavior  upon  himself,  then  there  is  a  com- 
mon mind;  a  common  intent  in  behavior.  There  is  an 
understanding  set  up  between  the  different  contributors ;  and 
this  common  understanding  controls  the  action  of  each. 

Suppose  that  conditions  were  so  arranged  that  one  person 
automatically  caught  a  ball  and  then  threw  it  to  another  per- 
son who  caught  and  automatically  returned  it ;  and  that  each 
so  acted  without  knowing  where  the  ball  came  from  or  went 
to.  Clearly,  such  action  would  be  without  point  or  meaning. 
It  might  be  physically  controlled,  but  it  would  not  be  socially 
directed.  But  suppose  that  each  becomes  aware  of  what  the 
other  is  doing,  and  becomes  interested  in  the  other's  action 
and  thereby  interested  in  what  he  is  doing  himself  as  con- 
nected with  the  action  of  the  other.  The  behavior  of  each 
would  then  be  intelligent ;  and  socially  intelligent  and  guided. 
Take  one  more  example  of  a  less  imaginary  kind.  An  infant 
is  hungry,  and  cries  while  food  is  prepared  in  his  presence. 
If  he  does  not  connect  his  own  state  with  what  others  are 
doing,  nor  what  they  are  doing  with  his  own  satisfaction,  he 
simply  reacts  with  increasing  impatience  to  his  own  increas- 
ing discomfort.  He  is  physically  controlled  by  his  own  organic 
state.  But  when  he  makes  a  back  and  forth  reference,  his  whole 
attitude  changes.  He  takes  an  interest,  as  we  say ;  he  takes 
note  and  watches  what  others  are  doing.  He  no  longer  reacts 
just  to  his  own  hunger,  but  behaves  in  the  hght  of  what  others 
are  doing  for  its  prospective  satisfaction.  In  that  way,  he 
also  no  longer  just  gives  way  to  hunger  without  knowing  it, 
but  he  notes,  or  recognizes,  or  identifies  his  own  state.  It 
becomes  an  object  for  him.  His  attitude  toward  it  becomes  in 
some  degree  intelligent.  And  in  such  noting  of  the  meaning 
of  the  actions  of  others  and  of  his  own  state,  he  is  socially 
directed. 


38  Philosophy  of  Education 

It  will  be  recalled  that  our  main  proposition  had  two  sides. 
One  of  them  has  now  been  dealt  with :  namely,  that  physical 
things  do  not  influence  mind  (or  form  ideas  and  beliefs)  except 
as  they  are  implicated  in  action  for  prospective  consequences. 
The  other  point  is  persons  modiiy  one  another's  dispositions  only 
through  the  special  use  they  make  of  physical  conditions.  Con- 
sider first  the  case  of  so-called  expressive  movements  to  which 
others  are  sensitive ;  blushing,  smiUng,  frowning,  cHnching  of 
fists,  natural  gestures  of  all  kinds.  In  themselves,  these  are 
not  expressive.  They  are  organic  parts  of  a  person's  attitude. 
One  does  not  blush  to  show  modesty  or  embarrassment  to 
others,  but  because  the  capillary  circulation  alters  in  response 
to  stimuli.  But  others  use  the  blush,  or  a  sHghtly  perceptible 
tightening  of  the  muscles  of  a  person  with  whom  they  are 
associated,  as  a  sign  of  the  state  in  which  that  person  finds 
himself,  and  as  an  indication  of  what  course  to  pursue.  The 
frown  signifies  an  imminent  rebuke  for  which  one  must 
prepare,  or  an  uncertainty  and  hesitation  which  one  must, 
if  possible,  remove  by  saying  or  doing  something  to  restore 
confidence. 

A  man  at  some  distance  is  waving  his  arms  wildly.  One 
has  only  to  preserve  an  attitude  of  detached  indifference,  and 
the  motions  of  the  other  person  will  be  on  the  level  of  any  re- 
mote physical  change  which  we  happen  to  note.  If  we  have 
no  concern  or  interest,  the  waving  of  the  arms  is  as  meaning- 
less to  us  as  the  gyrations  of  the  arms  of  a  windmill.  But  if 
interest  is  aroused,  we  begin  to  participate.  We  refer  his 
action  to  something  we  are  doing  ourselves  or  that  we  should 
do.  We  have  to  judge  the  meaning  of  his  act  in  order  to 
decide  what  to  do.  Is  he  beckoning  for  help  ?  Is  he  warning 
us  of  an  explosion  to  be  set  off,  against  which  we  should  guard 
ourselves  ?  In  one  case,  his  action  means  to  run  toward  him ; 
in  the  other  case,  to  run  away.  In  any  case,  it  is  the  change 
he  effects  in  the  physical  environment  which  is  a  sign  to  us  of 
how  we  should  conduct  ourselves.    Our  action  is  socially  con- 


Education  as  Direction  39 

trolled  because  we  endeavor  to  refer  what  we  are  to  do  to  the 
same  situation  in  which  he  is  acting. 

Language  is,  as  we  have  already  seen  {Ante,  p.  18)  a  case 
of  this  joint  reference  of  our  own  action  and  that  of  another 
to  a  common  situation.  Hence  its  unrivaled  significance  as 
a  means  of  social  direction.  But  language  would  not  be  this 
efficacious  instrument  were  it  not  that  it  takes  place  upon 
a  background  of  coarser  and  more  tangible  use  of  physical 
means  to  accomplish  results.  A  child  sees  persons  with  whom 
he  lives  using  chairs,  hats,  tables,  spades,  saws,  plows,  horses, 
money,  in  certain  ways.  If  he  has  any  share  at  all  in  what 
they  are  doing,  he  is  led  thereby  to  use  things  in  the  same 
way,  or  to  use  other  things  in  a  way  which  will  fit  in.  If  a 
chair  is  drawn  up  to  a  table,  it  is  a  sign  that  he  is  to  sit  in  it ; 
if  a  person  extends  his  right  hand,  he  is  to  extend  his ;  and  so 
on  in  a  never  ending  stream  of  detail.  The  prevailing  habits 
of  using  the  products  of  human  art  and  the  raw  materials  of 
nature  constitute  by  all  odds  the  deepest  and  the  most  per- 
vasive mode  of  social  control.  When  children  go  to  school, 
they  already  have  *  minds  '  —  they  have  knowledge  and  dis- 
positions of  judgment  which  may  be  appealed  to  through  the 
use  of  language.  But  these  *  minds  '  are  the  organized  habits 
of  intelligent  response  which  they  have  previously  required 
by  putting  things  to  use  in  connection  with  the  way  other 
persons  use  things.  The  control  is  inescapable;  it  saturates 
disposition. 

The  net  outcome  of  the  discussion  is  that  the  fundamental 
means  of  control  is  not  personal  but  intellectual.  It  is  not 
'  moral '  in  the  sense  that  a  person  is  moved  by  direct 
personal  appeal  from  others,  important  as  is  this  method  at 
critical  junctures.  It  consists  in  the  habits  of  under  standing, 
which  are  set  up  in  using  objects  in  correspondence  with  others, 
whether  by  way  of  cooperation  and  assistance  or  rivalry  and 
competition.  Mind  as  a  concrete  thing  is  precisely  the  power 
to  understand  things  in  terms  of  the  use  made  of  them;   a 


40  Philosophy  of  Education 

socialized  mind  is  the  power  to  understand  them  in  terms  of 
the  use  to  which  they  are  turned  in  joint  or  shared  situations. 
And  mind  in  this  sense  is  the  method  of  social  control. 

3.  Imitation  and  Social  Psychology,  —  We  have  already 
noted  the  defects  of  a  psychology  of  learning  which  places 
the  individual  mind  naked,  as  it  were,  in  contact  with  phys- 
ical objects,  and  which  believes  that  knowledge,  ideas,  and 
beliefs  accrue  from  their  interaction.  Only  comparatively 
recently  has  the  predominating  influence  of  association  with 
fellow  beings  in  the  formation  of  mental  and  moral  disposition 
been  perceived.  Even  now  it  is  usually  treated  as  a  kind  of 
adjunct  to  an  alleged  method  of  learning  by  direct  contact 
with  things,  and  as  merely  supplementing  knowledge  of  the 
physical  world  with  knowledge  of  persons.  The  purport  of 
our  discussion  is  that  such  a  view  makes  an  absurd  and  im- 
possible separation  between  persons  and  things.  Interaction 
with  things  may  form  habits  of  external  adjustment.  But  it 
leads  to  activity  having  a  meaning  and  conscious  intent  only 
when  things  are  used  to  produce  a  result.  And  the  only  way 
one  person  can  modify  the  mind  of  another  is  by  using  physical 
conditions,  crude  or  artificial,  so  as  to  evoke  some  answering 
activity  from  him.  Such  are  our  two  main  conclusions.  It 
is  desirable  to  amplify  and  enforce  them  by  placing  them  in 
contrast  with  the  theory  which  uses  a  psychology  of  supposed 
direct  relationships  of  human  beings  to  one  another  as  an 
adjunct  to  the  psychology  of  the  supposed  direct  relation  of 
an  individual  to  physical  objects.  In  substance,  this  so- 
called  social  psychology  has  been  built  upon  the  notion  of 
imitation.  Consequently,  we  shall  discuss  the  nature  and 
role  of  imitation  in  the  formation  of  mental  disposition. 

According  to  this  theory,  social  control  of  individuals  rests 
upon  the  instinctive  tendency  of  individuals  to  imitate  or 
copy  the  actions  of  others.  The  latter  serve  as  models.  The 
imitative  instinct  is  so  strong  that  the  young  devote  themselves 
to  confonning  to  the  patterns  set  by  others  and  reproducing 


Ediu:ation  as  Direction  41 

them  in  their  own  scheme  of  behavior.  According  to  our 
theory,  what  is  here  called  imitation  is  a  misleading  name  for 
partaking  with  others  in  a  use  of  things  which  leads  to  con- 
sequences of  common  interest. 

The  basic  error  in  the  current  notion  of  imitation  is  that 
it  puts  the  cart  before  the  horse.  It  takes  an  effect  for  the 
cause  of  the  effect.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  individuals 
in  forming  a  social  group  are  Uke-minded ;  they  understand 
one  another.  They  tend  to  act  with  the  same  controlling 
ideas,  beliefs,  and  intentions,  given  similar  circumstances. 
Looked  at  from  without,  they  might  be  said  to  be  engaged  in 
'imitating'  one  another.  In  the  sense  that  they  are  doing 
much  the  same  sort  of  thing  in  much  the  same  sort  of  way, 
this  would  be  true  enough.  But  '  imitation  '  throws  no  light 
upon  why  they  so  act;  it  repeats  the  fact  as  an  explanation 
of  itself.  It  is  an  explanation  of  the  same  order  as  the  famous 
saying  that  opiimi  puts  men  to  sleep  because  of  its  dormitive 
power. 

Objective  likeness  of  acts  and  the  mental  satisfaction  found 
in  being  in  conformity  with  others  are  baptized  by  the  name 
imitation.  This  social  fact  is  then  taken  for  a  psychological 
force,  which  produced  the  likeness.  A  considerable  portion 
of  what  is  called  imitation  is  simply  the  fact  that  persons 
being  alike  in  structure  respond  in  the  same  way  to  Kke 
stimuli.  Quite  independently  of  imitation,  men  on  being  in- 
sulted get  angry  and  attack  the  insulter.  This  statement 
may  be  met  by  citing  the  undoubted  fact  that  response  to 
an  insult  takes  place  in  different  ways  in  groups  having  dif- 
ferent customs.  In  one  group,  it  may  be  met  by  recourse  to 
fisticuffs,  in  another  by  a  challenge  to  a  duel,  in  a  third  by  an 
exhibition  of  contemptuous  disregard.  This  happens,  so  it  is 
said,  because  the  model  set  for  imitation  is  different.  But 
there  is  no  need  to  appeal  to  imitation.  The  mere  fact  that 
customs  are  different  means  that  the  actual  stimuli  to  be- 
havior axe  different.    Conscious  instruction  plays  a  part; 


42  Philosophy  of  Education 

prior  approvals  and  disapprovals  have  a  large  influence.  Still 
more  effective  is  the  fact  that  unless  an  individual  acts  in  the 
way  current  in  his  group,  he  is  Kterally  out  of  it.  He  can 
associate  with  others  on  intimate  and  equal  terms  only  by 
behaving  in  the  way  in  which  they  behave.  The  pressure 
that  comes  from  the  fact  that  one  is  let  into  the  group  action 
by  acting  in  one  way  and  shut  out  by  acting  in  another  way  is 
unremitting.  What  is  called  the  effect  of  imitation  is  mainly 
the  product  of  conscious  instruction  and  of  the  selective  in- 
fluence exercised  by  the  unconscious  confirmations  and  ratifica- 
tions of  those  with  whom  one  associates. 

Suppose  that  some  one  rolls  a  ball  to  a  child ;  he  catches  it 
and  rolls  it  back,  and  the  game  goes  on.  Here  the  stimulus 
is  not  just  the  sight  of  the  ball,  or  the  sight  of  the  other  roll- 
ing it.  It  is  the  situation  —  the  game  which  is  playing.  The 
response  is  not  merely  rolHng  the  ball  back;  it  is  rolling  it 
back  so  that  the  other  one  may  catch  and  return  it,  —  that 
the  game  may  continue.  The  '  pattern  '  or  model  is  not  the 
action  of  the  other  person.  The  whole  situation  requires 
that  each  should  adapt  his  action  in  view  of  what  the  other 
person  has  done  and  is  to  do.  Imitation  may  come  in  but  its 
r61e  is  subordinate.  The  child  has  an  interest  on  his  own 
account ;  he  wants  to  keep  it  going.  He  may  then  note  how 
the  other  person  catches  and  holds  the  ball  in  order  to  improve 
his  own  acts.  He  imitates  the  means  of  doing,  not  the  end  or 
thing  to  be  done.  And  he  imitates  the  means  because  he 
wishes,  on  his  own  behalf,  as  part  of  his  own  initiative,  to  take 
an  effective  part  in  the  game.  One  has  only  to  consider  how 
completely  the  child  is  dependent  from  his  earliest  days  for 
successful  execution  of  his  purposes  upon  fitting  his  acts  into 
those  of  others  to  see  what  a  premium  is  put  upon  behaving 
as  others  behave,  and  of  developing  an  understanding  of 
them  in  order  that  he  may  so  behave.  The  pressure  for 
likemindedness  in  action  from  this  source  is  so  great  that  it 
is  quite  superfluous  to  appeal  to  imitation. 


Education  as  Direction  43 

As  matter  of  fact,  imitation  of  ends,  as  distinct  from  imi- 
tation of  means  which  help  to  reach  ends,  is  a  superficial  and 
transitory  affair  which  leaves  little  effect  upon  disposition. 
Idiots  are  especially  apt  at  this  kind  of  imitation;  it  affects 
outward  acts  but  not  the  meaning  of  their  performance. 
When  we  find  children  engaging  in  this  sort  of  mimicry,  in- 
stead of  encouraging  them  (as  we  would  do  if  it  were  an  im- 
portant means  of  social  control)  we  are  more  likely  to  rebuke 
them  as  apes,  monkeys,  parrots,  or  copy  cats.  Imitation  of 
means  of  accomplishment  is,  on  the  other  hand,  an  intelligent 
act.  It  involves  close  observation,  and  judicious  selection  of 
what  will  enable  one  to  do  better  something  which  he  already 
is  trying  to  do.  Used  for  a  purpose,  the  imitative  instinct 
may,  Uke  any  other  instinct,  become  a  factor  in  the  develop- 
ment of  effective  action. 

This  excursus  should,  accordingly,  have  the  effect  of  reen- 
forcing  the  conclusion  that  genuine  social  control  means  the 
formation  of  a  certain  mental  disposition;  a  way  of  under^ 
standing  objects,  events,  and  acts  which  enables  one  to  partici- 
pate effectively  in  associated  activities.  Only  the  friction 
engendered  by  meeting  resistance  from  others  leads  to  the 
view  that  it  takes  place  by  forcing  a  line  of  action  contrary 
to  natural  incHnations.  Only  failure  to-  take  account  of  the 
situations  in  which  persons  are  mutually  concerned  (or  in- 
terested in  acting  responsively  to  one  another)  leads  to  treat- 
ing imitation  as  the  chief  agent  in  promoting  social  control. 

4.  Some  Applications  to  Education.  —  Why  does  a  savage 
group  perpetuate  savagery,  and  a  civilized  group  civilization  ? 
Doubtless  the  first  answer  to  occur  to  mind  is  because  savages 
are  savages;  beings  of  low-grade  intelhgence  and  perhaps 
defective  moral  sense.  But  careful  study  has  made  it  doubt- 
ful whether  their  native  capacities  are  appreciably  inferior  to 
those  of  civilized  man.  It  has  made  it  certain  that  native 
differences  are  not  sufficient  to  account  for  the  difference  in 
culture.     In  a  sense  the  mind  of  savage  peoples  is  an  effect, 


44  Philosophy  of  Education 

rather  than  a  cause,  of  their  backward  institutions.  Their 
social  activities  are  such  as  to  restrict  their  objects  of  atten- 
tion and  interest,  and  hence  to  limit  the  stimuli  to  mental 
development.  Even  as  regards  the  objects  that  come  within 
the  scope  of  attention,  primitive  social  customs  tend  to  arrest 
observation  and  imagination  upon  qualities  which  do  not 
fructify  in  the  mind.  Lack  of  control  of  natural  forces  means 
that  a  scant  number  of  natural  objects  enter  into  associated 
behavior.  Only  a  small  number  of  natural  resources  are  uti- 
lized and  they  are  not  worked  for  what  they  are  worth.  The 
advance  of  civilization  means  that  a  larger  number  of  natural 
forces  and  objects  have  been  transformed  into  instrumentali- 
ties of  action,  into  means  for  securing  ends.  We  start 
not  so  much  with  superior  capacities  as  with  superior  stimuli 
for  evocation  and  direction  of  our  capacities.  The  savage 
deals  largely  with  crude  stimuU ;   we  have  weighted  stimuli. 

Prior  human  efforts  have  made  over  natural  conditions. 
As  they  originally  existed  they  were  indifferent  to  human  en- 
deavors. Every  domesticated  plant  and  animal,  every  tool, 
every  utensil,  every  appUance,  every  manufactured  article, 
every  aesthetic  decoration,  every  work  of  art  means  a  trans- 
formation of  conditions  once  hostile  or  indifferent  to  charac- 
teristic human  activities  into  friendly  and  favoring  con- 
ditions. Because  the  activities  of  children  to-day  are  con- 
trolled by  these  selected  and  charged  stimuli,  children  are 
able  to  traverse  in  a  short  lifetime  what  the  race  has  needed 
slow,  tortured  ages  to  attain.  The  dice  have  been  loaded  by 
all  the  successes  which  have  preceded. 

Stimuli  conducive  to  economical  and  effective  response, 
such  as  our  system  of  roads  and  means  of  transportation,  our 
ready  command  of  heat,  light,  and  electricity,  our  readymade 
machines  and  apparatus  for  every  purpose,  do  not,  by  them- 
selves or  in  their  aggregate,  constitute  a  civilization.  But  the 
uses  to  which  they  are  put  are  civilization,  and  without  the 
things  the  uses  would  be  impossible.     Time  otherwise  neces- 


Education  as  Direction  45 

sarilx  devoted  to  wresting  a  livelihood  from  a  grudging  en- 
vironment and  securing  a  precarious  protection  against  its 
inclemencies  is  freed.  A  body  of  knowledge  is  transmitted, 
the  legitimacy  of  which  is  guaranteed  by  the  fact  that  the 
physical  equipment  in  which  it  is  incarnated  leads  to  re- 
sults that  square  with  the  other  facts  of  nature.  Thus  these 
appliances  of  art  supply  a  protection,  perhaps  our  chief  pro- 
tection, against  a  recrudescence  of  these  superstitious  beliefs, 
those  fanciful  myths  and  infertile  imaginings  about  nature  in 
which  so  much  of  the  best  intellectual  power  of  the  past  has 
been  spent.  If  we  add  one  other  factor,  namely,  that  such 
appUances  be  not  only  used,  but  used  in  the  interests  of  a  truly 
shared  or  associated  life,  then  the  appliances  become  the  positive 
resources  of  civilization.  If  Greece,  with  a  scant  tithe  of  our 
material  resources,  achieved  a  worthy  and  noble  intellectual 
and  artistic  career,  it  is  because  Greece  operated  for  social 
ends  such  resources  as  it  had. 

But  whatever  the  situation,  whether  one  of  barbarism  or 
civilization,  whether  one  of  stinted  control  of  physical  forces, 
or  of  partial  enslavement  to  a  mechanism  not  yet  made  tribu- 
tary to  a  shared  experience,  things  as  they  enter  into  action 
furnish  the  educative  conditions  of  daily  Ufe  and  direct  the 
formation  of  mental  and  moral  disposition. 

Intentional  education  signifies,  as  we  have  already  seen,  a 
specially  selected  environment,  the  selection  being  made  on 
the  basis  of  materials  and  method  specifically  promoting 
growth  in  the  desired  direction.  Since  language  represents 
the  physical  conditions  that  have  been  subjected  to  the  maxi- 
mum transformation  in  the  interests  of  social  life — physr 
cal  things  which  have  lost  their  original  quality  in  becoming 
social  tools  —  it  is  appropriate  that  language  should  play  a 
large  part  compared  with  other  appHances.  By  it  we  are  led 
to  share  vicariously  in  past  human  experience,  thus  widening 
and  enriching  the  experience  of  the  present.  We  are  enabled, 
symbohcaUy  and  imaginatively,  to  anticipate  situations.     In 


46  Philosophy  of  Education 

countless  ways,  language  condenses  meanings  that  record 
social  outcomes  and  presage  social  outlooks.  So  significant 
is  it  of  a  liberal  share  in  what  is  worth  while  in  Hfe  that  un- 
lettered and  uneducated  have  become  almost  synonymous. 

The  emphasis  in  school  upon  this  particular  tool  has,  how- 
ever, its  dangers :  —  dangers  which  are  not  theoretical  but 
exhibited  in  practice.  Why  is  it,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
teaching  by  pouring  in,  learning  by  a  passive  absorption,  are 
universally  condemned,  that  they  are  still  so  intrenched  in 
practice  ?  That  education  is  not  an  affair  of  '  telling '  and  being 
told,  but  an  active  and  constructive  process,  is  a  principle 
almost  as  generally  violated  in  practice  as  conceded  in  theory. 
Is  not  this  deplorable  situation  due  to  the  fact  that  the  doc- 
trine is  itself  merely  told  ?  It  is  preached ;  it  is  lectured ;  it 
is  written  about.  But  its  enactment  into  practice  requires 
that  the  school  environment  be  equipped  with  agencies  for 
doing,  with  tools  and  physical  materials,  to  an  extent  rarely 
attained.  It  requires  that  methods  of  instruction  and  ad- 
ministration be  modified  to  allow  and  to  secure  direct  and 
continuous  occupations  with  things.  Not  that  the  use  of 
language  as  an  educational  resource  should  lessen;  but  that 
its  use  should  be  more  vital  and  fruitful  by  having  its  normal 
connection  with  shared  activities.  "  These  things  ought  ye 
to  have  done,  and  not  to  have  left  the  others  undone."  And 
for  the  school  "  these  things  "  mean  equipment  with  the  instru- 
mentalities of  cooperative  or  joint  activity. 

For  when  the  schools  depart  from  the  educational  condi- 
tions effective  in  the  out-of-school  environment,  they  neces- 
sarily substitute  a  bookish,  a  pseudo-intellectual  spirit  for  a 
social  spirit.  Children  doubtless  go  to  school  to  learn,  but  it 
has  yet  to  be  proved  that  learning  occurs  most  adequately  when 
it  is  made  a  separate  conscious  business.  When  treating  it  as 
a  business  of  this  sort  tends  to  preclude  the  social  sense  which 
comes  from  sharing  in  an  activity  of  common  concern  and 
value,  the  effort  at  isolated  intellectual  learning  contradicts 


Education  as  Direction  47 

its  own  aim.  We  may  secure  motor  activity  and  sensory 
excitation  by  keeping  an  individual  by  himself,  but  we  can- 
not thereby  get  him  to  understand  the  meaning  which  things 
have  in  the  Hfe  of  which  he  is  a  part.  We  may  secure  tech- 
nical specialized  ability  in  algebra,  Latin,  or  botany,  but  not 
the  kind  of  intelligence  which  directs  ability  to  useful  ends. 
Only  by  engaging  in  a  joint  activity,  where  one  person's  use  of 
material  and  tools  is  consciously  referred  to  the  use  other 
persons  are  making  of  their  capacities  and  appliances,  is  a  social 
direction  of  disposition  attained. 

Summary.  —  The  natural  or  native  impulses  of  the  young 
do  not  agree  with  the  life-customs  of  the  group  into  which 
they  are  born.  Consequently  they  have  to  be  directed  or 
guided.  This  control  is  not  the  same  thing  as  physical  com- 
pulsion; it  consists  in  centering  the  impulses  acting  at  any 
one  time  upon  some  specific  end  and  in  introducing  an 
order  of  continuity  into  the  sequence  of  acts.  The  action  of 
others  is  always  influenced  by  deciding  what  stimuli  shall  call 
out  their  actions.  But  in  some  cases  as  in  commands,  pro- 
hibitions, approvals,  and  disapprovals,  the  stimuli  proceed 
from  persons  with  a  direct  view  to  influencing  action.  Since 
in  such  cases  we  are  most  conscious  of  controlling  the  action 
of  others,  we  are  likely  to  exaggerate  the  importance  ot  this 
sort  of  control  at  the  expense  of  a  more  permanent  and  effective 
method.  The  basic  control  resides  in  the  nature  of  the  situa- 
tions in  which  the  young  take  part.  In  social  situations  the 
young  have  to  refer  their  way  of  acting  to  what  others  are 
doing  and  make  it  fit  in.  This  directs  their  action  to  a  com- 
mon result,  and  gives  an  understanding  common  to  the  par- 
ticipants. For  all  mean  the  same  thing,  even  when  perform- 
ing different  acts.  This  comm,on  understanding  of  the  means 
and  ends  of  action  is  the  essence  of  social  control.  It  is  in- 
direct, or  emotional  and  intellectual,  not  direct  or  personal. 
Moreover  it  is  intrinsic  to  the  disposition  of  the  person,  not 
external    and    coercive.    To    achieve    this    internal    control 


48  Philosophy  of  Education 

through  identity  of  interest  and  understanding  is  the  business 
of  education.  While  books  and  conversation  can  do  much, 
these  agencies  are  usually  relied  upon  too  exclusively.  Schools 
require  for  their  full  efficiency  more  opportunity  for  conjoint 
activities  in  which  those  instructed  take  part,  so  that  they 
may  acquire  a  social  sense  of  their  own  powers  and  of  the 
materials  and  appliances  used. 


CHAPTER  IV 

EDUCATION  AS   GROWTH 

1.  The  Conditions  of  Growth.  —  In  directing  the  activities 
of  the  young,  society  determines  its  own  future  in  determining 
that  of  the  young.  Since  the  young  at  a  given  time  will  at 
some  later  date  compose  the  society  of  that  period,  the  latter's 
nature  wiU  largely  turn  upon  the  direction  children's  activities 
were  given  at  an  earlier  period.  This  cumulative  movement 
of  action  toward  a  later  result  is  what  is  meant  by  growth. 

The  primary  condition  of  growth  is  immaturity.  This  may 
seem  to  be  a  mere  truism  —  saying  that  a  being  can  develop 
only  in  some  point  in  which  he  is  undeveloped.  But  the  prefix 
*  im  '  of  the  word  immaturity  means  something  positive,  not 
a  mere  void  or  lack.  It  is  noteworthy  that  the  terms  *  capac- 
ity '  and  *  potentiality  '  have  a  double  meaning,  one  sense 
being  negative,  the  other  positive.  Capacity  may  denote 
mere  receptivity,  Uke  the  capacity  of  a  quart  measure.  We 
may  mean  by  potentiality  a  merely  dormant  or  quiescent 
state  —  a  capacity  to  become  something  different  under  ex- 
ternal influences.  But  we  also  mean  by  capacity  an  ability, 
a  power ;  and  by  potentiality  potency,  force.  Now  when  we 
say  that  immaturity  means  the  possibiHty  of  growth,  we  are 
not  referring  to  absence  of  powers  which  may  exist  at  a  later 
time ;  we  express  a  force  positively  present  —  the  ability  to 
develop. 

Our  tendency  to  take  immaturity  as  mere  lack,  and  growth 
as  something  which  fills  up  the  gap  between  the  immature 
and  the  mature  is  due  to  regarding  childhood  comparatively ^ 
instead  of  intrinsically.     We  treat  it  simply  as  a  privation 

E  44 


5©  Philosophy  of  Edtication 

because  we  are  measuring  it  by  adulthood  as  a  fixed  stand- 
ard. This  fixes  attention  upon  what  the  child  has  not,  and 
will  not  have  till  he  becomes  a  man.  This  comparative  stand- 
point is  legitimate  enough  for  some  purposes,  but  if  we  make 
it  final,  the  question  arises  whether  we  are  not  guilty  of  an 
overweening  presumption.  Children,  if  they  could  express 
themselves  articulately  and  sincerely,  would  tell  a  different 
tale ;  and  there  is  excellent  adult  authority  for  the  conviction 
that  for  certain  moral  and  intellectual  purposes  adults  must 
become  as  Uttle  children. 

The  seriousness  of  the  assumption  of  the  negative  quality 
of  the  possibilities  of  immaturity  is  apparent  when  we  reflect 
that  it  sets  up  as  an  ideal  and  standard  a  static  end.  The 
fulfillment  of  growing  is  taken  to  mean  an  accomplished  growth. : 
that  is  to  say,  an  Ungrowth,  something  which  is  no  longer 
growing.  The  futility  of  the  assumption  is  seen  in  the  fact 
that  every  adult  resents  the  imputation  of  having  no  further 
possibilities  of  growth;  and  so  far  as  he  finds  that  they  are 
closed  to  him  mourns  the  fact  as  evidence  of  loss,  instead  of 
falling  back  on  the  achieved  as  adequate  manifestation  of 
power.     Why  an  unequal  measure  for  child  and  man? 

Taken  absolutely,  instead  of  comparatively,  immaturity 
designates  a  positive  force  or  ability,  —  the  power  to  grow. 
We  do  not  have  to  draw  out  or  educe  positive  activities  from 
a  child,  as  some  educational  doctrines  would  have  it.  Where 
there  is  life,  there  are  already  eager  and  impassioned  activities. 
Growth  is  not  something  done  to  them ;  it  is  something  they 
do.  The  positive  and  constructive  aspect  of  possibility  gives 
the  key  to  understanding  the  two  chief  traits  of  immaturity, 
dependence  and  plasticity,  (i)  It  sounds  absurd  to  hear  de- 
pendence spoken  of  as  something  positive,  still  more  absurd 
as  a  power.  Yet  if  helplessness  were  all  there  were  in  de- 
pendence, no  development  could  ever  take  place.  A  merely 
impotent  being  has  to  be  carried,  forever,  by  others.  The 
fact  that  dependence  is  accompanied  by  growth  in  ability. 


Education  as  Growth  51 

not  by  an  ever  increasirg  lapse  into  parasitism,  suggests  that 
it  is  already  something  constructive.  Being  merely  sheltered 
by  others  would  not  promote  growth.  For  (2)  it  would  only 
build  a  wall  around  impotence.  With  reference  to  the  physi-. 
cal  world,  the  child  is  helpless.  He  lacks  at  birth  and  for  a 
long  time  thereafter  power  to  make  his  way  physically,  to  make 
his  own  Hving,  If  he  had  to  do  that  by  himself,  he  would 
hardly  survive  an  hour.  On  this  side  his  helplessness  is  almost 
complete.  The  young  of  the  brutes  are  immeasurably  his 
superiors.  He  is  physically  weak  and  not  able  to  turn  the 
strength  which  he  possesses  to  coping  with  the  physical  en- 
vironment. 

I.  The  thoroughgoing  character  of  this  helplessness  suggests, 
however,  some  compensating  power.  The  relative  ability  of 
the  young  of  brute  animals  to  adapt  themselves  fairly  well  to 
physical  conditions  from  an  early  period  suggests  the  fact 
that  their  Hfe  is  not  intimately  bound  up  with  the  life  of  those 
about  them.  They  are  compelled,  so  to  speak,  to  have  physi- 
cal gifts  because  they  are  lacking  in  social  gifts.  Human 
infants,  on  the  other  hand,  can  get  along  with  physical  in- 
capacity just  because  of  their  social  capacity.  We  sometimes 
talk  and  think  as  if  they  simply  happened  to  be  physically  in 
a  social  environment ;  as  if  social  forces  exclusively  existed  in 
the  adults  who  take  care  of  them,  thev  being  passive  recipients. 
If  it  were  said  that  children  are  themselves  marvelously  en- 
dowed with  power  to  enlist  the  cooperative  attention  of  others, 
this  would  be  thought  to  be  a  backhanded  way  of  saying  that 
others  are  marvelously  attentive  to  the  needs  of  children, 
But  observation  shows  that  children  are  gifted  with  an  equip- 
ment of  the  first  order  for  social  intercourse.  Few  grown-up 
persons  retain  all  of  the  flexible  and  sensitive  abihty  of  chil- 
dren to  vibrate  sympathetically  with  the  attitudes  and  doings 
of  those  about  them.  Inattention  to  physical  things  (going 
with  incapacity  to  control  them)  is  accompanied  by  a  corre- 
sponding intensification  of  interest  and  attention  as  to  the 


52  Philosophy  oj  Education 

doings  of  people.  The  native  mechanism  of  the  child  and 
his  impulses  all  tend  to  facile  social  responsiveness.  The 
statement  that  children,  before  adolescence,  are  egotistically 
seK-centered,  even  if  it  were  true,  would  not  contradict  the 
truth  of  this  statement.  It  would  simply  indicate  that  their 
social  responsiveness  is  employed  on  their  own  behalf,  not  that 
it  does  not  exist.  But  the  statement  is  not  true  as  matter  of 
fact.  The  facts  which  are  cited  in  support  of  the  alleged 
pure  egoism  of  children  really  show  the  intensity  and  direct- 
ness with  which  they  go  to  their  mark.  If  the  ends  which 
form  the  mark  seem  narrow  and  selfish  to  adults,  it  is  only 
because  adults  (by  means  of  a  similar  engrossment  in  their 
day)  have  mastered  these  ends,  which  have  consequently 
ceased  to  interest  them.  Most  of  the  remainder  of  children's 
alleged  native  egoism  is  simply  an  egoism  which  runs  counter 
to  an  adult's  egoism.  To  a  grown-up  person  who  is  too 
absorbed  in  his  own  affairs  to  take  an  interest  in  children's 
affairs,  children  doubtless  seem  unreasonably  engrossed  in  their 
own  affairs. 

From  a  social  standpoint,  dependence  denotes  a  power 
rather  than  a  weakness ;  it  involves  interdependence.  There 
is  always  a  danger  that  increased  personal  independence  will 
decrease  the  social  capacity  of  an  individual.  In  making 
him  more  self-reliant,  it  may  make  him  more  self-sufficient; 
it  may  lead  to  aloofness  and  indifference.  It  often  makes  an 
individual  so  insensitive  in  his  relations  to  others  as  to  develop 
an  illusion  of  being  really  able  to  stand  and  act  alone  —  an 
unnamed  form  of  insanity  which  is  responsible  for  a  large 
part  of  the  remediable  suffering  of  the  world. 

2.  The  specific  adaptability  of  an  immature  creature  for 
growth  constitutes  his  plasticity.  This  is  something  quite 
different  from  the  plasticity  of  putty  or  wax.  It  is  not  a 
capacity  to  take  on  change  of  form  in  accord  with  external 
pressure.  It  lies  near  the  phable  elasticity  by  which  some 
persons  take  on  the  color  of  their  surroundings  while  retaining 


Education  as  Growth  53 

their  own  bent.  But  it  is  something  deeper  than  this.  It  is 
essentially  the  ability  to  learn  from  experience ;  the  power  to 
retain  from  one  experience  something  which  is  of  avail  in  cop- 
ing with  the  difficulties  of  a  later  situation.  This  means 
power  to  modify  actions  on  the  basis  of  the  results  of  prior 
experiences,  the  power  to  develop  dispositions.  Without  it, 
the  acquisition  of  habits  is  impossible. 

It  is  a  familiar  fact  that  the  young  of  the  higher  animals, 
and  especially  the  human  young,  have  to  learn  to  utilize  their 
instinctive  reactions.  The  human  being  is  bom  with  a  greater 
number  of  instinctive  tendencies  than  other  animals.  But 
the  instincts  of  the  lower  animals  perfect  themselves  for 
appropriate  action  at  an  early  period  after  birth,  while  most 
of  those  of  the  human  infant  are  of  Httle  account  just  as  they 
stand.  An  original  specialized  power  of  adjustment  secures 
immediate  efficiency,  but,  like  a  railway  ticket,  it  is  good  for 
one  route  only.  A  being  who,  in  order  to  use  his  eyes,  ears, 
hands,  and  legs,  has  to  experiment  in  making  varied  combina- 
tions of  their  reactions,  achieves  a  control  that  is  flexible  and 
varied.  A  chick,  for  example,  pecks  accurately  at  a  bit  of 
food  in  a  few  hours  after  hatching.  This  means  that  definite 
coordinations  of  activities  of  the  eyes  in  seeing  and  of  the 
body  and  head  in  striking  are  perfected  in  a  few  trials.  An 
infant  requires  about  six  months  to  be  able  to  gauge  with 
approximate  accuracy  the  action  in  reaching  which  will  co- 
ordinate with  his  visual  activities ;  to  be  able,  that  is,  to  tell 
whether  he  can  reach  a  seen  object  and  just  how  to  execute 
the  reaching.  As  a  result,  the  chick  is  limited  by  the  relative 
perfection  of  its  original  endowment.  The  infant  has  the 
advantage  of  the  midtitude  of  instinctive  tentative  reactions 
and  of  the  experiences  that  accompany  them,  even  though  he 
is  at  a  temporary  disadvantage  because  they  cross  one  an- 
other. In  learning  an  action,  instead  of  having  it  given  ready- 
made,  one  of  necessity  learns  to  vary  its  factors,  to  make 
varied  combinations  of  them,  according  to  change  of  circum- 


54  Philosophy  of  Education 

stances.  A  possibility  of  continuing  progress  is  opened  up 
by  the  fact  that  in  learning  one  act,  methods  are  developed 
good  for  use  in  other  situations.  Still  more  important  is  the 
fact  that  the  human  being  acquires  a  habit  of  learning.  He 
learns  to  learn. 

The  importance  for  human  life  of  the  two  facts  of  depend- 
ence and  variable  control  has  been  summed  up  in  the  doc- 
trine of  the  significance  of  prolonged  infancy.^  This  pro- 
longation is  significant  from  the  standpoint  of  the  adult  mem- 
bers of  the  group  as  well  as  from  that  of  the  young.  The 
presence  of  dependent  and  learning  beings  is  a  stimulus  to 
nurture  and  affection.  The  need  for  constant  continued  care 
was  probably  a  chief  means  in  transforming  temporary  co- 
habitations into  permanent  unions.  It  certainly  was  a  chief 
influence  in  forming  habits  of  affectionate  and  sympathetic 
watchfulness ;  that  constructive  interest  in  the  well-being  of 
others  which  is  essential  to  associated  life.  Intellectually, 
this  moral  development  meant  the  introduction  of  many  new 
objects  of  attention;  it  stimulated  foresight  and  planning 
for  the  future.  Thus  there  is  a  reciprocal  influence.  Increas- 
ing complexity  of  social  Hfe  requires  a  longer  period  of  infancy 
in  which  to  acquire  the  needed  powers ;  this  prolongation  of 
dependence  means  prolongation  of  plasticity,  or  power  of 
acquiring  variable  and  novel  modes  of  control.  Hence  it 
provides  a  further  push  to  social  progress. 

2.  Habits  as  Expressions  of  Growth.  —  We  have  already 
noted  that  plasticity  is  the  capacity  to  retain  and  carry  over 
from  prior  experience  factors  which  modify  subsequent  activi- 
ties. This  signifies  the  capacity  to  acquire  habits,  or  develop 
definite  dispositions.  We  have  now  to  consider  the  salient 
features  of  habits.  In  the  first  place,  a  habit  is  a  form  of 
executive  skill,  of  eflSciency  in  doing.    A  habit  means  an  ability 

*  Intimations  of  its  significance  are  found  in  a  number  of  writers,  but  John 
Fiske,  in  his  "  Excursions  of  an  Evolutionist,"  is  accredited  with  its  first  sys- 
tematic exposition. 


Education  as  Growth  55 

to  use  natural  conditions  as  means  to  ends.  It  is  an  active 
control  of  the  environment  through  control  of  the  organs  of 
action.  We  are  perhaps  apt  to  emphasize  the  control  of  the 
body  at  the  expense  of  control  of  the  environment.  We  think 
of  walking,  talking,  playing  the  piano,  the  specialized  skills 
characteristic  of  the  etcher,  the  surgeon,  the  bridge-builder, 
as  if  they  were  simply  ease,  deftness,  and  accuracy  on  the 
part  of  the  organism.  They  are  that,  of  course;  but  the 
measure  of  the  value  of  these  qualities  lies  in  the  economical 
and  effective  control  of  the  environment  which  they  secure. 
To  be  able  to  walk  is  to  have  certain  properties  of  nature 
at  our  disposal  —  and  so  with  all  other  habits. 

Education  is  not  infrequently  defined  as  consisting  in  the 
acquisition  of  those  habits  that  effect  an  adjustment  of  an 
individual  and  his  environment.  The  definition  expresses  an 
essential  phase  of  growth.  But  it  is  essential  that  adjustment 
be  understood  in  its  active  sense  of  control  of  means  for  achiev- 
ing ends.  If  we  think  of  a  habit  simply  as  a  change  wrought 
in  the  organism,  ignoring  the  fact  that  this  change  consists  in 
ability  to  effect  subsequent  changes  in  the  environment,  we 
shall  be  lead  to  think  of  *  adjustment '  as  a  conformity  to 
environment  as  wax  conforms  to  the  seal  which  impresses  it. 
The  environment  is  thought  of  as  something  fi^ed,  providing 
in  its  fbdty  the  end  and  standard  of  changes  taking  place  in 
the  organism;  adjustment  is  just  fitting  ourselves  to  this 
fixity  of  external  conditions.^  Habit  as  habituation  is  indeed 
something  relatively  passive ;  we  get  used  to  our  surroundings 
—  to  our  clothing,  our  shoes,  and  gloves ;  to  the  atmosphere 
as  long  as  it  is  fairly  equable;  to  our  daily  associates,  etc. 
Conformity  to  the  environment,  a  change  wrought  in  the 
organism  without  reference  to  ability  ro  modify  surroundings, 

^  This  concq>tion  is,  of  course,  a  logical  correlate  of  the  conceptions  of 
the  external  relation  of  stimulus  and  response,  considered  in  the  last  chapter, 
and  of  the  negative  conceptions  of  immaturity  and  plasticity  noted  in  this 
chacter. 


§6  Philosophy  of  Education 

is  a  marked  trait  of  such  habituations.  Aside  from  the  fact 
that  we  are  not  entitled  to  carry  over  the  traits  of  such  adjust- 
ments (which  might  well  be  called  accommodations,  to  mark 
them  off  from  active  adjustments)  into  habits  of  active 
use  of  our  surroundings,  two  features  of  habituations  are 
worth  notice.  In  the  first  place,  we  get  used  to  things  by 
first  using  them. 

Consider  getting  used  to  a  strange  city.  At  first,  there 
is  excessive  stimulation  and  excessive  and  ill-adapted  re- 
sponse. Gradually  certain  stimuH  are  selected  because  of 
their  relevancy,  and  others  are  degraded.  We  can  say  either 
that  we  do  not  respond  to  them  any  longer,  or  more  truly 
that  we  have  effected  a  persistent  response  to  them  —  an 
equilibrium  of  adjustment.  This  means,  in  the  second  place, 
that  this  enduring  adjustment  supplies  the  background  upon 
which  are  made  specific  adjustments,  as  occasion  arises.  We 
are  never  interested  in  changing  the  whole  environment; 
there  is  much  that  we  take  for  granted  and  accept  just  as  it 
already  is.  Upon  this  background  our  activities  focus  at 
certain  points  in  an  endeavor  to  introduce  needed  changes. 
Habituation  is  thus  our  adjustment  to  an  environment  which 
at  the  time  we  are  not  concerned  with  modifying,  and  which 
supplies  a  leverage  to  our  active  habits. 

Adaptation,  in  fine,  is  quite  as  much  adaptation  of  the  en- 
vironment to  our  own  activities  as  of  our  activities  to  the 
environment.  A  savage  tribe  manages  to  Uve  on  a  desert 
plain.  It  adapts  itself.  But  its  adaptation  involves  a  maxi- 
mum of  accepting,  tolerating,  putting  up  with  things  as  they 
are,  a  maximum  of  passive  acquiescence,  and  a  minimum  of 
active  control,  of  subjection  to  use.  A  civilized  people  enters 
upon  the  scene.  It  also  adapts  itself.  It  introduces  irriga- 
tion ;  it  searches  the  world  for  plants  and  animals  that  will 
flourish  under  such  conditions ;  it  improves,  by  careful  selec- 
tion, those  which  are  growing  there.  As  a  consequence,  the 
wilderness  blossoms  as  a  rose.     The  savage  is  merely  habit- 


Education  as  Growth  57 

uated;  the  civilized  man  has  habits  which  transform  the 
environment. 

The  significance  of  habit  is  not  exhausted,  however,  in  its 
executive  and  motor  phase.  It  means  formation  of  intellec- 
tual and  emotional  disposition  as  well  as  an  increase  in  ease, 
economy,  and  efficiency  of  action.  Any  habit  marks  an  in- 
clination —  an  active  preference  and  choice  for  the  conditions 
involved  in  its  exercise.  A  habit  does  not  wait,  Micawber- 
like,  for  a  stimulus  to  turn  up  so  that  it  may  get  busy;  it 
actively  seeks  for  occasions  to  pass  into  full  operation.  If  its 
expression  is  unduly  blocked,  inclination  shows  itself  in  im- 
easiness  and  intense  craving.  A  habit  also  marks  an  intel- 
lectual disposition.  Where  there  is  a  habit,  there  is  acquaint- 
ance with  the  materials  and  equipment  to  which  action  is 
applied.  There  is  a  definite  way  of  understanding  the  situa- 
tions in  which  the  habit  operates.  Modes  of  thought,  of  obser- 
vation and  reflection,  enter  as  forms  of  skill  and  of  desire  into 
the  habits  that  make  a  man  an  engineer,  an  architect,  a  phy- 
sician, or  a  merchant.  In  unskilled  forms  of  labor,  the  intel- 
lectual factors  are  at  minimum  precisely  because  the  habits 
involved  are  not  of  a  high  grade.  But  there  are  habits  of 
judging  and  reasoning  as  truly  as  of  handling  a  tool,  painting 
a  picture,  or  conducting  an  experiment. 

Such  statements  are,  however,  understatements.  The 
habits  of  mind  involved  in  habits  of  the  eye  and  hand  supply 
the  latter  with  their  significance.  Above  all,  the  intellectual 
elemert  in  a  habit  fixes  the  relation  of  the  habit  to  varied  and 
elastic  use,  and  hence  to  continued  growth.  We  speak  of 
fixed  habits.  Well,  the  phrase  may  mean  powers  so  well 
established  that  their  possessor  always  has  them  as  resources 
when  needed.  But  the  phrase  is  also  used  to  mean  ruts, 
routine  ways,  with  loss  of  freshness,  openmindedness,  and 
originality.  Fixity  of  habit  may  mean  that  something  has  a 
fixed  hold  upon  us,  instead  of  our  having  a  free  hold  upon 
things.    This  fact  explains  two  points  in  a  common  notion 


58  Philosophy  of  Edtication 

about  habits :  their  identification  with  mechanical  and  external 
modes  of  action  to  the  neglect  of  mental  and  moral  attitudes, 
and  the  tendency  to  give  them  a  bad  meaning,  an  identifica- 
tion with  "  bad  habits."  Many  a  person  would  feel  sur- 
prised to  have  his  aptitude  in  his  chosen  profession  called  a 
habit,  and  would  naturally  think  of  his  use  of  tobacco, 
hquor,  or  profane  language  as  typical  of  the  meaning  of 
habit.  A  habit  is  to  him  something  which  has  a  hold  on 
him,  something  not  easily  thrown  off  even  though  judgment 
condemn  it. 

Habits  reduce  themselves  to  routine  ways  of  acting,  or  de- 
generate into  ways  of  action  to  which  we  are  enslaved  just  in 
the  degree  in  which  intelligence  is  disconnected  from  them. 
Routine  habits  are  unthinking  habits ;  "  bad  "  habits  are 
habits  so  severed  from  reason  that  they  are  opposed  to  the  con- 
clusions of  conscious  deliberation  and  decision.  As  we  have 
seen,  the  acquiring  of  habits  is  due  to  an  original  plasticity 
of  our  natures :  to  our  ability  to  vary  responses  till  we  find 
an  appropriate  and  efficient  way  of  acting.  Routine  habits, 
and  habits  that  possess  us  instead  of  our  possessing  them,  are 
habits  which  put  an  end  to  plasticity.  They  mark  the  close  of 
power  to  vary.  There  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  tendency  of 
organic  plasticity,  of  the  physiological  basis,  to  lessen  with 
growing  years.  The  instinctively  mobile  and  eagerly  varying 
action  of  childhood,  the  love  of  new  stimuli  and  new  develop- 
ments, too  easily  passes  into  a  "  settling  down,"  which  means 
aversion  to  change  and  a  resting  on  past  achievements.  Only 
an  environment  which  secures  the  full  use  of  intelligence  in 
the  process  of  forming  habits  can  counteract  this  tendency. 
Of  course,  the  same  hardening  of  the  organic  conditions  affects 
the  physiological  structures  which  are  involved  in  thinking. 
But  this  fact  only  indicates  the  need  of  persistent  care  to  see 
to  it  that  the  function  of  intelKgence  is  invoked  to  its  maxi- 
mum possibihty.  The  short-sighted  method  which  falls  back 
on  mechanical  routine  and  repetition  to  secure  external  efl&- 


Education  as  Growth  59 

ciency  of  habit,  motor  skill  without  accompanying  thought, 
marks  a  deliberate  closing  in  of  surroundings  upon  growth. 

3.  The  Educational  Bearings  of  the  Conception  of  Develop- 
ment. —  We  have  had  so  far  but  little  to  say  in  this  chapter 
about  education.  We  have  been  occupied  with  the  conditions 
and  impKcations  of  growth.  If  our  conclusions  are  justified, 
they  carry  with  them,  however,  definite  educational  conse- 
quences. When  it  is  said  that  education  is  development,  every- 
thing depends  upon  how  development  is  conceived.  Our  net 
conclusion  is  that  Hfe  is  development,  and  that  developing, 
growing,  is  life.  Translated  into  its  educational  equivalents, 
this  means  {i)  that  the  educational  process  has  no  end  beyond 
itself ;  it  is  its  own  end ;  and  that  (w)  the  educational  process 
is  one  of  continual  reorganizing,  reconstructing,  transforming. 

I.  Development  when  it  is  interpreted  in  comparative 
terms,  that  is,  with  respect  to  the  special  traits  of  child  and 
adult  life,  means  the  direction  of  power  into  special  channels : 
the  formation  of  habits  involving  executive  skill,  definiteness 
of  interest,  and  specific  objects  of  observation  and  thought. 
But  the  comparative  view  is  not  final.  The  child  has  specific 
powers ;  to  ignore  that  fact  is  to  stunt  or  distort  the  organs 
upon  which  his  growth  depends.  The  adult  uses  his  powers 
to  transform  his  environment,  thereby  occasioning  new  stimuli 
which  redirect  his  powers  and  keep  them  developing.  Ignor- 
ing this  fact  means  arrested  development,  a  passive  accommo- 
dation. Normal  child  and  normal  adult  alike,  in  other  words, 
are  engaged  in  growing.  The  difference  between  them  is  not 
the  difference  between  growth  and  no  growth,  but  between 
the  modes  of  growth  appropriate  to  different  conditions. 
With  respect  to  the  development  of  powers  devoted  to  coping 
with  specific  scientific  and  economic  problems  we  may  say 
the  child  should  be  growing  in  manhood.  With  respect  to 
sympathetic  curiosity,  unbiased  responsiveness,  and  openness 
of  mind,  we  may  say  that  the  adult  should  be  growing  in 
childlikeness.    One  statement  is  as  true  as  the  other. 


6o  Philosophy  of  Editcation 

Three  ideas  which  have  been  criticized,  namely,  the  merely 
privative  nature  of  immaturity,  static  adjustment  to  a  fixed 
environment,  and  rigidity  of  habit,  are  all  connected  with  a 
false  idea  of  growth  or  development,  —  that  it  is  a  movement 
toward  a  fixed  goal.  Growth  is  regarded  as  having  an  end, 
instead  of  being  an  end.  The  educational  counterparts  of 
the  three  fallacious  ideas  are  first,  failure  to  take  account  of 
the  instinctive  or  native  powers  of  the  young;  secondly, 
failure  to  develop  initiative  in  coping  with  novel  situations ; 
thirdly,  an  undue  emphasis  upon  drill  and  other  devices  which 
secure  automatic  skill  at  the  expense  of  personal  perception. 
In  all  cases,  the  adult  environment  is  accepted  as  a  standard 
for  the  child.     He  is  to  be  brought  up  to  it. 

Natural  instincts  are  either  disregarded  or  treated  as  nui- 
sances —  as  obnoxious  traits  to  be  suppressed,  or  at  all  events 
to  be  brought  into  conformity  with  external  standards.  Since 
conformity  is  the  aim,  what  is  distinctively  individual  in  a 
young  person  is  brushed  aside,  or  regarded  as  a  source  of  mis- 
chief or  anarchy.  Conformity  is  made  equivalent  to  uniform- 
ity. Consequently,  there  are  induced  lack  of  interest  in  the 
novel,  aversion  to  progress,  and  dread  of  the  uncertain  and  the 
unknown.  Since  the  end  of  growth  is  outside  of  and  beyond 
the  process  of  growing,  external  agents  have  to  be  resorted  to 
to  induce  movement  towards  it.  Whenever  a  method  of 
education  is  stigmatized  as  mechanical,  we  may  be  sure  that 
external  pressure  is  brought  to  bear  to  reach  an  external  end. 

2.  Since  in  reahty  there  is  nothing  to  which  growth  is  rela- 
tive save  more  growth,  there  is  nothing  to  which  education  is 
subordinate  save  more  education.  It  is  a  commonplace  to 
say  that  education  should  not  cease  when  one  leaves  school. 
The  point  of  this  commonplace  is  that  the  purpose  of  school 
education  is  to  insure  the  continuance  of  education  by  organ- 
izing the  powers  that  insure  growth.  The  inclination  to  learn 
from  life  itself  and  to  make  the  conditions  of  life  such  that  all  will 
learn  in  the  process  of  living  is  the  finest  product  of  schooling. 


Education  as  Growth  6i 

When  we  abandon  the  attempt  to  define  immaturity  by 
means  of  fixed  comparison  with  adult  accomplishments,  we 
are  compelled  to  give  up  thinking  of  it  as  denoting  lack  of 
desired  traits.  Abandoning  this  notion,  we  are  also  forced 
to  surrender  our  habit  of  thinking  of  instruction  as  a  method 
of  supplying  this  lack  by  pouring  knowledge  into  a  mental 
and  moral  hole  which  awaits  filling.  Since  Hfe  means  growth, 
a  Hving  creature  lives  as  truly  and  positively  at  one  stage  as 
at  another,  with  the  same  intrinsic  fullness  and  the  same  abso- 
lute claims.  Hence  education  means  the  enterprise  of  supply- 
ing the  conditions  which  insure  growth,  or  adequacy  of  life, 
irrespective  of  age.  We  first  look  with  impatience  upon  im- 
maturity, regarding  it  as  something  to  be  got  over  as  rapidly 
as  possible.  Then  the  adult  formed  by  such  educative 
methods  looks  back  with  impatient  regret  upon  childhood  and 
youth  as  a  scene  of  lost  opportunities  and  wasted  powers. 
This  ironical  situation  will  endure  till  it  is  recognized  that 
Hving  has  its  own  intrinsic  quaUty  and  that  the  business  of 
education  is  with  that  quaHty. 

Realization  that  Hfe  is  growth  protects  us  from  that  so- 
called  ideaHzing  of  childhood  which  in  effect  is  nothing  but 
lazy  indulgence.  Life  is  not  to  be  identified  with  every  super- 
ficial act  and  interest.  Even  though  it  is  not  always  easy 
to  teU  whether  what  appears  to  be  mere  surface  fooHng  is 
a  sign  of  some  nascent  as  yet  untrained  power,  we  must  re- 
member that  manifestations  are  not  to  be  accepted  as  ends 
in  themselves.  They  are  signs  of  possible  growth.  They  arc 
to  be  turned  into  means  of  development,  of  carrying  power 
forward,  not  indulged  or  cultivated  for  their  own  sake.  Exces- 
sive attention  to  surface  phenomena  (even  in  the  way  of  re- 
buke as  well  as  of  encouragement)  may  lead  to  their  fixation 
and  thus  to  arrested  development.  What  impulses  are  mov- 
ing toward,  not  what  they  have  been,  is  the  important  thing 
for  parent  and  teacher.  The  true  principle  of  respect  for  im- 
maturity cannot  be  better  put  than  in  the  words  of  Emerson . 


62  Philosophy  of  Education 

"  Respect  the  child.  Be  not  too  much  his  parent.  Trespass 
not  on  his  solitude.  But  I  hear  the  outcry  which  replies  to 
this  suggestion :  Would  you  verily  throw  up  the  reins  of 
public  and  private  discipline;  would  you  leave  the  young 
child  to  the  mad  career  of  his  own  passions  and  whimsies,  and 
call  this  anarchy  a  respect  for  the  child's  nature?  I  answer, 
—  Respect  the  child,  respect  him  to  the  end,  but  also  respect 
yourself.  .  .  .  The  two  points  in  a  boy's  training  are,  to 
keep  his  naturel  and  train  ofif  all  but  that;  to  keep  his 
naturel,  but  stop  off  his  uproar,  fooling,  and  horseplay ;  keep 
his  nature  and  arm  it  with  knowledge  in  the  very  direction  in 
which  it  points J^  And  as  Emerson  goes  on  to  show  this  rever- 
ence for  childhood  and  youth  instead  of  opening  up  an  easy 
and  easy-going  path  to  the  instructors,  "  involves  at  once, 
immense  claims  on  the  time,  the  thought,  on  the  Ufe  of  the 
teacher.  It  requires  time,  use,  insight,  event,  all  the  great 
lessons  and  assistances  of  God ;  and  only  to  think  of  using  it 
implies  character  and  profoundness." 

Summary.  —  Power  to  grow  depends  upon  need  for  others 
and  plasticity.  Both  of  these  conditions  are  at  their  height 
in  childhood  and  youth.  Plasticity  or  the  power  to  learn 
from  experience  means  the  formation  of  habits.  Habits  give 
control  over  the  environment,  power  to  utilize  it  for  human 
purposes.  Habits  take  the  form  both  of  habituation,  or  a 
general  and  persistent  balance  of  organic  activities  with  the 
surroundings,  and  of  active  capacities  to  readjust  activity  to 
meet  new  conditions.  The  former  furnishes  the  background 
of  growth ;  the  latter  constitute  growing.  Active  habits  in- 
volve thought,  invention,  and  initiative  in  applying  capacities 
to  new  aims.  They  are  opposed  to  routine  which  marks  an 
arrest  of  growth.  Since  growth  is  the  characteristic  of  Hfe, 
education  is  all  one  with  growing ;  it  has  no  end  beyond  itself. 
The  criterion  of  the  value  of  school  education  is  the  extent  in 
which  it  creates  a  desire  for  continued  growth  and  suppUes 
means  for  making  the  desire  effective  in  fact. 


CHAPTER  V 

PREPARATION,  UNFOLDING,   AND  FORMAL  DISCIPLINE 

1.  Education  as  Preparation.  —  We  have  laid  it  down  that 
the  educative  process  is  a  continuous  process  of  growth,  hav- 
ing as  its  aim  at  every  stage  an  added  capacity  of  growth. 
This  conception  contrasts  sharply  with  other  ideas  which  have 
influenced  practice.  By  making  the  contrast  explicit,  the 
meaning  of  the  conception  will  be  brought  more  clearly  to 
Ught.  The  first  contrast  is  with  the  idea  that  education  is  a 
process  of  preparation  or  getting  ready.  What  is  to  be  pre- 
pared for  is,  of  course,  the  responsibilities  and  privileges  of 
adult  hfe.  Children  are  not  regarded  as  social  members  in 
full  and  regular  standing.  They  are  looked  upon  as  candidates ; 
they  are  placed  on  the  waiting  Ust.  The  conception  is  only 
carried  a  Httle  farther  when  the  Hfe  of  adults  is  considered  as 
not  having  meaning  on  its  own  account,  but  as  a  preparatory 
probation  for  "  another  Hfe."  The  idea  is  but  another  form 
of  the  notion  of  the  negative  and  privative  character  of 
growth  already  criticized ;  hence  we  shall  not  repeat  the  criti- 
cisms, but  pass  on  to  the  evil  consequences  which  flow  from 
putting  education  on  this  basis. 

In  the  first  place,  it  involves  loss  of  impetus.  Motive  power 
is  not  utilized.  Children  proverbially  live  in  the  present ; 
that  is  not  only  a  fact  not  to  be  evaded,  but  it  is  an  excel- 
lence. The  future  just  as  future  lacks  urgency  and  body. 
To  get  ready  for  something,  one  knows  not  what  nor  why, 
is  to  throw  away  the  leverage  that  exists,  and  to  seek  for  motive 
power  in  a  vague  chance.  Under  such  circiunstances,  there  is, 
in  the  second  place,  a  premium  put  on  shillyshallying  and  pro* 

63 


64  Philosophy  of  Education 

crastination.  The  future  prepared  for  is  a  long  way  off; 
plenty  of  time  will  intervene  before  it  becomes  a  present. 
Why  be  in  a  hurry  about  getting  ready  for  it?  The  tempta- 
tion to  postpone  is  much  increased  because  the  present  offers 
so  many  wonderful  opportunities  and  proffers  such  invitations 
to  adventure.  Naturally  attention  and  energy  go  to  them; 
education  accrues  naturally  as  an  outcome,  but  a  lesser  educa- 
tion than  if  the  full  stress  of  effort  had  been  put  upon  making 
conditions  as  educative  as  possible.  A  third  undesirable  result 
is  the  substitution  of  a  conventional  average  standard  of  ex- 
pectation and  requirement  for  a  standard  which  concems  the 
specific  powers  of  the  individual  under  instruction.  For  a 
severe  and  definite  judgment  based  upon  the  strong  and 
weak  points  of  the  individual  is  substituted  a  vague  and 
wavering  opinion  concerning  what  youth  may  be  expected, 
upon  the  average,  to  become  in  some  more  or  less  remote 
future ;  say,  at  the  end  of  the  year,  when  promotions  are  to 
take  place,  or  by  the  time  they  are  ready  to  go  to  college  or 
to  enter  upon  what,  in  contrast  with  the  probationary  stage,  is 
regarded  as  the  serious  business  of  Hfe.  It  is  impossible  to 
overestimate  the  loss  which  results  from  the  deflection  of  at- 
tention from  the  strategic  point  to  a  comparatively  impro- 
ductive  point.  It  fails  most  just  where  it  thinks  it  is  succeed- 
ing —  in  getting  a  preparation  for  the  future. 

Finally,  the  principle  of  preparation  makes  necessary  re- 
course on  a  large  scale  to  the  use  of  adventitious  motives  of 
pleasure  and  pain.  The  future  having  no  stimulating  and 
directing  power  when  severed  from  the  possibilities  of  the 
present,  something  must  be  hitched  on  to  it  to  make  it  work. 
Promises  of  reward  and  threats  of  pain  are  employed.  Healthy 
work,  done  for  present  reasons  and  as  a  factor  in  living,  is 
largely  unconscious.  The  stimulus  resides  in  the  situation 
with  which  one  is  actually  confronted.  But  when  this  situation 
is  ignored,  pupils  have  to  be  told  that  if  they  do  not  follow  the 
prescribed  course  penalties  will  accrue ;  while  if  they  do,  they 


Preparation^  Unfolding,  and  Formal  Discipline     65 

may  expect,  some  time  in  the  future,  rewards  for  their  present 
sacrifices.  Everybody  knows  how  largely  systems  of  punish- 
ment have  had  to  be  resorted  to  by  educational  systems  which 
neglect  present  possibiHties  in  behalf  of  preparation  for  a 
future.  Then,  in  disgust  with  the  harshness  and  impotency 
of  this  method,  the  pendulum  swings  to  the  opposite  extreme, 
and  the  dose  of  information  required  against  some  later  day  is 
sugar-coated,  so  that  pupils  may  be  fooled  into  taking  some- 
thing which  they  do  not  care  for. 

It  is  not  of  course  a  question  whether  education  should  pre- 
pare for  the  future.  If  education  is  growth,  it  must  pro- 
gressively realize  present  possibiHties,  and  thus  make  individ- 
uals better  fitted  to  cope  with  later  requirements.  Growing 
is  not  something  which  is  completed  in  odd  moments;  it  is 
a  continuous  leading  into  the  future.  If  the  environment,  in 
school  and  out,  suppHes  conditions  which  utilize  adequately 
the  present  capacities  of  the  immature,  the  future  which  grows 
out  of  the  present  is  surely  taken  care  of.  The  mistake  is  not 
in  attaching  importance  to  preparation  for  future  need,  but  in 
making  it  the  mainspring  of  present  effort.  Because  the  need 
of  preparation  for  a  continually  developing  life  is  great,  it  is 
imperative  that  every  energy  should  be  bent  to  making  the 
present  experience  as  rich  and  significant  as  possible.  Then 
as  the  present  merges  insensibly  into  the  future,  the  future  is 
taken  care  of. 

2.  Education  as  Unfolding.  —  There  is  a  conception  of 
education  which  professes  to  be  based  upon  the  idea  of  devel- 
opment. But  it  takes  back  with  one  hand  what  it  proffers 
with  the  other.  Development  is  conceived  not  as  continuous 
growing,  but  as  the  unfolding  of  latent  powers  toward  a 
definite  goal.  The  goal  is  conceived  of  as  completion,  per- 
fection. Life  at  any  stage  short  of  attainment  of  this  goal  is 
merely  an  unfolding  toward  it.  Logically  the  doctrine  is  only 
a  variant  of  the  preparation  theory.  Practically  the  two 
differ  in  that  the  adherents  of  the  latter  make  much  of  th<* 


66  Philosophy  of  Education 

practical  and  professional  duties  for  which  one  is  preparingj 
while  the  developmental  doctrine  speaks  of  the  ideal  and 
spiritual  qualities  of  the  principle  which  is  unfolding. 

The  conception  that  growth  and  progress  are  just  approxi- 
mations to  a  final  unchanging  goal  is  the  last  infirmity  of  the 
mind  in  its  transition  from  a  static  to  a  dynamic  understand- 
ing of  Ufe.  It  simulates  the  style  of  the  latter.  It  pays  the 
tribute  of  speaking  much  of  development,  process,  progress. 
But  all  of  these  operations  are  conceived  to  be  merely  tran- 
sitional; they  lack  meaning  on  their  own  account.  They 
possess  significance  only  as  movements  toward  something 
away  from  what  is  now  going  on.  Since  growth  is  just  a 
movement  toward  a  completed  being,  the  final  ideal  is  im- 
mobile. An  abstract  and  indefinite  future  is  in  control  with 
all  which  that  connotes  in  depreciation  of  present  power  and 
opportunity. 

Since  the  goal  of  perfection,  the  standard  of  development,  is 
very  far  away,  it  is  so  beyond  us  that,  strictly  speaking,  it  is 
unattainable.  Consequently,  in  order  to  be  available  for 
present  guidance  it  must  be  translated  into  something  which 
stands  for  it.  Otherwise  we  should  be  compelled  to  regard 
any  and  every  manifestation  of  the  child  as  an  unfolding  from 
within,  and  hence  sacred.  Unless  we  set  up  some  definite 
criterion  representing  the  ideal  end  by  which  to  judge  whether 
a  given  attitude  or  act  is  approximating  or  moving  away, 
our  sole  alternative  is  to  withdraw  all  influences  of  the  environ- 
ment lest  they  interfere  with  proper  development.  Since  that 
is  not  practicable,  a  working  substitute  is  set  up.  Usually,  of 
course,  this  is  some  idea  which  an  adult  would  like  to  have 
a  child  acquire.  Consequently,  by  "  suggestive  questioning  " 
or  some  other  pedagogical  device,  the  teacher  proceeds  to 
"  draw  out  "  from  the  pupil  what  is  desired.  If  what  is 
desired  is  obtained,  that  is  evidence  that  the  child  is  unfolding 
properly.  But  as  the  pupil  generally  has  no  initiative  of  his 
flwn  in  this  direction,  the  result  is  a  random  groping  after  what 


PreparatioUy  Unfolding,  and  Formal  Discipline     67 

is  wanted,  and  the  formation  of  habits  of  dependence  upon 
the  cues  furnished  by  others.  Just  because  such  methods  simu- 
late a  true  principle  and  claim  to  have  its  sanction  they  may 
do  more  harm  than  would  outright  "  teUing,"  where,  at  least, 
it  remains  with  the  child  how  much  will  stick. 

Within  the  sphere  of  philosophic  thought  there  have  been 
two  typical  attempts  to  provide  a  working  representative  of 
the  absolute  goal.  Both  start  from  the  conception  of  a  whole 
—  an  absolute  —  which  is  "  immanent  "  in  human  life.  The 
perfect  or  complete  ideal  is  not  a  mere  ideal;  it  is  operative 
here  and  now.  But  it  is  present  only  implicitly,  "  poten- 
tially," or  in  an  enfolded  condition.  What  is  termed  develop- 
ment is  the  gradual  making  explicit  and  outward  of  what  is 
thus  wrapped  up.  Froebel  and  Hegel,  the  authors  of  the  two 
philosophic  schemes  referred  to,  have  different  ideas  of  the 
path  by  which  the  progressive  realization  or  manifestation  of 
the  complete  principle  is  effected.  According  to  Hegel,  it  is 
worked  out  through  a  series  of  historical  institutions  which 
embody  the  different  factors  in  the  Absolute.  According  to 
Froebel,  the  actuating  force  is  the  presentation  of  symbols, 
largely  mathematical,  corresponding  to  the  essential  traits  of 
the  Absolute.  When  these  are  presented  to  the  child,  the 
Whole,  or  perfection,  sleeping  within  him,  is  awakened.  A 
single  example  may  indicate  the  method.  Every  one  famiHar 
with  the  kindergarten  is  acquainted  with  the  circle  in  which  the 
children  gather.  It  is  not  enough  that  the  circle  is  a  conven- 
ient way  of  grouping  the  children.  It  must  be  used  "  because 
it  is  a  s)rmbol  of  the  collective  life  of  mankind  in  general." 

Froebel's  recognition  of  the  significance  of  the  native  ca- 
pacities of  children,  his  loving  attention  to  them,  and  his  in- 
fluence in  inducing  others  to  study  them,  represent  perhaps  the 
most  effective  single  force  in  modem  educational  theory  in 
effecting  widespread  acknowledgment  of  the  idea  of  growth. 
But  his  formulation  of  the  notion  of  development  and  his  or- 
ganization of  devices  for  promoting  it  were  badly  hampered 


68  Philosophy  of  Education 

by  the  fact  that  he  conceived  development  to  be  the  unfolding 
of  a  ready-made  latent  principle.  He  failed  to  see  that  grow- 
ing is  growth,  developing  is  development,  and  consequently 
placed  the  emphasis  upon  the  completed  product.  Thus  he 
set  up  a  goal  which  meant  the  arrest  of  growth,  and  a  criterion 
which  is  not  applicable  to  immediate  guidance  of  powers,  save 
through  translation  into  abstract  and  symbolic  formulae. 

A  remote  goal  of  complete  unfoldedness  is,  in  technical 
philosophic  language,  trancendental.  That  is,  it  is  something 
apart  from  direct  experience  and  perception.  So  far  as  ex- 
perience is  concerned,  it  is  empty ;  it  represents  a  vague  senti- 
mental aspiration  rather  than  anything  which  can  be  intelli- 
gently grasped  and  stated.  This  vagueness  must  be  com- 
pensated for  by  some  a  priori  formula.  Froebel  made  the 
connection  between  the  concrete  facts  of  experience  and  the 
transcendental  ideal  of  development  by  regarding  the  former 
as  symbols  of  the  latter.  To  regard  known  things  as  symbols, 
according  to  some  arbitrary  a  priori  formula  —  and  every 
a  priori  conception  must  be  arbitrary  —  is  an  invitation  tc 
romantic  fancy  to  seize  upon  any  analogies  which  appeal  to  it 
and  treat  them  as  laws.  After  the  scheme  of  symbolism  has 
been  settled  upon,  some  definite  technique  must  be  invented 
by  which  the  inner  meaning  of  the  sensible  symbols  used  may 
be  brought  home  to  children.  Adults  being  the  formulators 
of  the  symbohsm  are  naturally  the  authors  and  controllers 
of  the  technique.  The  result  was  that  Froebel's  love  of  ab- 
stract symbolism  often  got  the  better  of  his  sympathetic  in- 
sight ;  and  there  was  substituted  for  development  as  arbitrary 
and  externally  imposed  a  scheme  of  dictation  as  the  history  of 
instruction  has  ever  seen. 

With  Hegel  the  necessity  of  finding  some  working  concrete 
counterpart  of  the  inaccessible  Absolute  took  an  institutional, 
rather  than  symbolic,  form.  His  philosophy,  like  Froebel's, 
marks  in  one  direction  an  indispensable  contribution  to  a 
valid  conception  of  the  process  of  life.    The  weaknesses  of  an 


Preparation^  Unfolding,  and  Formal  Discipline     69 

abstract  individualistic  philosophy  were  evident  to  him ;  he 
saw  the  impossibility  of  making  a  clean  sweep  of  historical 
institutions,  of  treating  them  as  despotisms  begot  in  artifice 
and  nurtured  in  fraud.  In  his  philosophy  of  history  and 
society  culminated  the  efforts  of  a  whole  series  of  German 
writers  —  Lessing,  Herder,  Kant,  Schiller,  Gk)ethe  —  to  ap- 
preciate the  nurturing  influence  of  the  great  collective  in- 
stitutional products  of  humanity.  For  those  who  learned  the 
lesson  of  this  movement,  it  was  henceforth  impossible  to 
conceive  of  institutions  or  of  culture  as  artificial.  It  de- 
stroyed completely  —  in  idea,  not  in  fact  —  the  psychology 
that  regarded  "  mind  "  as  a  ready-made  possession  of  a  naked 
individual  by  showing  the  significance  of  "  objective  mind"  — • 
language,  government,  art,  religion  —  in  the  formation  of 
individual  miuds.  But  since  Hegel  was  haunted  by  the  con- 
ception of  an  absolute  goal,  he  was  obliged  to  arrange  institu- 
tions as  they  concretely  exist,  on  a  stepladder  of  ascending 
approximations.  Each  in  its  time  and  place  is  absolutely 
necessary,  because  a  stage  in  the  self-realizing  process  of  the 
absolute  mind.  Taken  as  such  a  step  or  stage,  its  existence 
is  proof  of  its  complete  rationaHty,  for  it  is  an  integral  element 
in  the  total,  which  is  Reason.  Against  institutions  as  they  are, 
individuals  have  no  spiritual  rights;  personal  development, 
and  nurture,  consist  in  obedient  assimilation  of  the  spirit  of 
existing  institutions.  Conformity,  not  transformation,  is  the 
essence  of  education.  Institutions  change  as  history  shows; 
but  their  change,  the  rise  and  fall  of  states,  is  the  work  of  the 
"  world-spirit."  Individuals,  save  the  great  "  heroes  "  who 
are  the  chosen  organs  of  the  world-spirit,  have  no  share  or  lot 
in  it.  In  the  later  nineteenth  century,  this  type  of  idealism 
was  amalgamated  with  the  doctrine  of  biological  evolution. 
"  Evolution  "  was  a  force  working  itself  out  to  its  own  end. 
As  against  it,  or  as  compared  with  it,  the  conscious  ideas  and 
preference  of  individuals  are  impotent.  Or,  rather,  they  are 
but  the  means  by  which  it  works  itself  out.     Social  progress  is 


•JO  Philosophy  of  Edtication 

an  "  organic  growth,"  not  an  experimental  selection.  Reason 
is  all  powerful,  but  only  Absolute  Reason  has  any  power. 

The  recognition  (or  rediscovery,  for  the  idea  was  familiar 
to  the  Greeks)  that  great  historic  institutions  are  active  factors 
in  the  intellectual  nurture  of  mind  was  a  great  contribution  to 
educational  philosophy.  It  indicated  a  genuine  advance  be- 
yond Rousseau,  who  had  marred  his  assertion  that  education 
must  be  a  natural  development  and  not  something  forced  or 
grafted  upon  individuals  from  without,  by  the  notion  that 
social  conditions  are  not  natural.  But  in  its  notion  of  a  com- 
plete and  all-inclusive  end  of  development,  the  Hegelian  theory 
swallowed  up  concrete  individuahties,  though  magnifying  The 
Individual  in  the  abstract.  Some  of  Hegel's  followers  sought 
to  reconcile  the  claims  of  the  Whole  and  of  individuaHty  by 
the  conception  of  society  as  an  organic  whole,  or  organism. 
That  social  organization  is  presupposed  in  the  adequate  exer- 
cise of  individual  capacity  is  not  to  be  doubted.  But  the 
social  organism,  interpreted  after  the  relation  of  the  organs  of 
the  body  to  each  other  and  to  the  whole  body,  means  that 
each  individual  has  a  certain  limited  place  and  function,  re- 
quiring to  be  supplemented  by  the  place  and  functions  of  the 
other  organs.  As  one  portion  of  the  bodily  tissue  is  differen- 
tiated so  that  it  can  be  the  hand  and  the  hand  only,  another, 
the  eye,  and  so  on,  all  taken  together  making  the  organism, 
so  one  individual  is  supposed  to  be  differentiated  for  the  exer- 
cise of  the  mechanical  operations  of  society,  another  for  those 
of  a  statesman,  another  for  those  of  a  scholar,  and  so  on.  The 
notion  of  '  organism  '  is  thus  used  to  give  a  philosophic  sanction 
to  class  distinctions  in  social  organization  —  a  notion  which  in 
its  educational  application  again  means  external  dictation  in- 
stead of  growth. 

3.  Education  as  Training  of  Facilities.  —  A  theory  which 
has  had  great  vogue  and  which  came  into  existence  before  the 
notion  of  growth  had  much  influence  is  known  as  the  theory  of 
*  formal  discipline.*     It  has  in  view  a  correct  ideal ;  one  out- 


Preparation,  Unfolding,  and  Formal  Discipline     71 

come  of  education  should  be  the  creation  of  specific  powers  of 
accomplishment.  A  trained  person  is  one  who  can  do  the  chief 
things  which  it  is  important  for  him  to  do  better  than  he  could 
without  training :  '  better '  signifying  greater  ease,  effi- 
ciency, economy,  promptness,  etc.  That  this  is  an  outcome 
of  education  was  indicated  in  what  was  said  about  habits  as 
the  product  of  educative  development.  But  the  theory  in 
question  takes,  as  it  were,  a  short  cut ;  it  regards  some  powers 
(to  be  presently  named)  as  the  direct  and  conscious  aims  of 
instruction,  and  not  simply  as  the  results  of  growth.  There 
is  a  definite  number  of  powers  to  be  trained,  as  one  might  enu- 
merate the  kinds  of  strokes  which  a  golfer  has  to  master.  Conse- 
quently education  should  get  directly  at  the  business  of  train- 
ing them.  But  this  impHes  that  they  are  already  there  in 
some  untrained  form ;  otherwise  their  creation  would  have  to 
be  an  indirect  product  of  other  activities  and  agencies.  Being 
there  already  in  some  crude  form,  all  that  remains  is  to  exer- 
cise them  in  constant  and  graded  repetitions,  and  they  will 
inevitably  be  refined  and  perfected.  In  the  phrase  *  formal 
discipline  '  as  appUed  to  this  conception,  *  discipline  '  refers 
both  to  the  outcome  of  trained  power  and  to  the  method  of 
training  through  repeated  exercise. 

The  forms  of  powers  in  question  are  such  things  as  the  facul- 
ties of  perceiving,  retaining,  recalling,  associating,  attending, 
willing,  feeling,  imagining,  thinking,  etc.,  which  are  then  shaped 
by  exercise  upon  material  presented.  In  its  classic  form,  this 
theory  was  expressed  by  Locke.  On  the  one  hand,  the  outer 
world  presents  the  material  or  content  of  knowledge  through 
passively  received  sensations.  On  the  other  hand,  the  mind 
has  certain  ready  powers,  attention,  observation,  retention, 
comparison,  abstraction,  compounding,  etc.  Knowledge  re- 
sults if  the  mind  discriminates  and  combines  things  as  they 
are  united  and  divided  in  nature  itself.  But  the  important 
thing  for  education  is  the  exercise  or  practice  of  the  faculties  of 
the  mind  till  they  become  thoroughly  established  habitudes. 


72  Philosophy  of  Edttcation 

The  analogy  constantly  employed  is  that  of  a  billiard  player 
or  gymnast,  who  by  repeated  use  of  certain  muscles  in  a  uni 
form  way  at  last  secures  automatic  skill.  Even  the  faculty  of 
thinking  was  to  be  formed  into  a  trained  habit  by  repeated 
exercises  in  making  and  combining  simple  distinctions,  for 
which.  Locke  thought,  mathematics  affords  unrivaled  op- 
portunity. 

Locke's  statements  fitted  well  into  the  dualism  of  his  day. 
It  seemed  to  do  justice  to  both  mind  and  matter,  the  indi- 
vidual and  the  world.  One  of  the  two  suppUed  the  matter  of 
knowledge  and  the  object  upon  which  mind  should  work. 
The  other  supplied  definite  mental  powers,  which  were  few 
in  number  and  which  might  be  trained  by  specific  exercises. 
The  scheme  appeared  to  give  due  weight  to  the  subject  matter 
of  knowledge,  and  yet  it  insisted  that  the  end  of  education  is 
not  the  bare  reception  and  storage  of  information,  but  the 
formation  of  personal  powers  of  attention,  memory,  observa- 
tion, abstraction,  and  generalization.  It  was  realistic  in  its 
emphatic  assertion  that  all  material  whatever  is  received 
from  without;  it  was  idealistic  in  that  final  stress  fell  upon 
the  formation  of  intellectual  powers.  It  was  objective  and 
impersonal  in  its  assertion  that  the  individual  cannot  possess 
or  generate  any  true  ideas  on  his  own  account ;  it  was  indi- 
viduaHstic  in  placing  the  end  of  education  in  the  perfecting  of 
certain  faculties  possessed  at  the  outset  by  the  individual. 
This  kind  of  distribution  of  values  expressed  with  nicety  the 
state  of  opinion  in  the  generations  following  upon  Locke. 
It  became,  without  explicit  reference  to  Locke,  a  common- 
place of  educational  theory  and  of  psychology.  Practically, 
it  seemed  to  provide  the  educator  with  definite,  instead  of 
vague,  tasks.  It  made  the  elaboration  of  a  technique  of  in- 
struction relatively  easy.  All  that  was  necessary  was  to  pro- 
vide for  sufficient  practice  of  each  of  the  powers.  This 
practice  consists  in  repeated  acts  of  attending,  observing, 
memorizing,  etc.     By  grading  the  difficulty  of  the  acts,  making 


Preparation,  Unfolding,  and  Formal  Discipline      73 

each  set  of  repetitions  somewhat  more  difficult  than  the  set 
which  preceded  it,  a  complete  scheme  of  instruction  is  evolved. 
There  are  various  ways,  equally  conclusive,  of  criticizing  this 
conception,  in  both  its  alleged  foundations  and  in  its  educa- 
tional application,  (i)  Perhaps  the  most  direct  mode  of 
attack  consists  in  pointing  out  that  the  supposed  original 
faculties  of  observation,  recollection,  willing,  thinking,  etc., 
are  purely  mythological.  There  are  no  such  ready-made 
powers  waiting  to  be  exercised  and  thereby  trained.  There 
are,  indeed,  a  great  number  of  original  native  tendencies,  in- 
stinctive modes  of  action,  based  on  the  original  connections 
of  neurones  in  the  central  nervous  system.  There  are  im- 
pulsive tendencies  of  the  eyes  to  follow  and  fixate  light;  of 
the  neck  muscles  to  turn  toward  Hght  and  sound;  of  the 
hands  to  reach  and  grasp ;  and  turn  and  twist  and  thump ;  of 
the  vocal  apparatus  to  make  sounds ;  of  the  mouth  to  spew 
out  unpleasant  substances ;  to  gag  and  to  curl  the  Hp,  and  so 
on  in  almost  indefinite  number.  But  these  tendencies  (a)  in- 
stead of  being  a  small  number  sharply  marked  off  from  one 
another,  are  of  an  indefinite  variety,  interweaving  with  one 
another  in  all  kinds  of  sub  tie  ways.  (&)  Instead  of  being  latent 
intellectual  powers,  requiring  only  exercise  for  their  perfecting, 
they  are  tendencies  to  respond  in  certain  ways  to  changes  in 
the  environment  so  as  to  bring  about  other  changes.  Some- 
thing in  the  throat  makes  one  cough ;  the  tendency  is  to  eject 
the  obnoxious  particle  and  thus  modify  the  subsequent  stimu- 
lus. The  hand  touches  a  hot  thing ;  it  is  impulsively,  wholly 
unintellectually,  snatched  away.  But  the  withdrawal  alters 
the  stimuli  operating,  and  tends  to  make  them  more  con- 
sonant with  the  needs  of  the  organism.  It  is  by  such  specific 
changes  of  organic  activities  in  response  to  specific  changes  in 
the  medium  that  that  control  of  the  enviroimient  of  which  we 
have  spoken  (see  ante,  p.  29)  is  effected.  Now  all  of  our  first 
seeings  and  hearings  and  touchings  and  smellings  and  tastings 
are  of  this  kind.     In  any  legitimate  sense  of  the  words  mental 


74  Philosophy  of  Edtication 

or  intellectual  or  cognitive,  they  are  lacking  in  these  qualities, 
and  no  amount  of  repetitious  exercise  could  bestow  any  intel- 
lectual properties  of  observation,  judgment,  or  intentional 
action  (volition)  upon  them. 

(2)  Consequently  the  training  of  our  original  impulsive  ac- 
tivities is  not  a  refinement  and  perfecting  achieved  by  *  exercise' 
as  one  might  strengthen  a  muscle  by  practice.  It  consists 
rather  (a)  in  selecting  from  the  dififused  responses  which  are 
evoked  at  a  given  time  those  which  are  especially  adapted  to 
the  utilization  of  the  stimulus.  That  is  to  say,  among  the 
reactions  of  the  body  in  general  ^  and  the  hand  in  particular 
which  instinctively  occur  upon  stimulation  of  the  eye  by  Ught, 
all  except  those  which  are  specifically  adapted  to  reaching, 
grasping,  and  manipulating  the  object  effectively  are  gradually 
eliminated  —  or  else  no  training  occurs.  As  we  have  already 
noted,  the  primary  reactions,  with  a  very  few  exceptions,  are 
too  diffused  and  general  to  be  practically  of  much  use  in  the 
case  of  the  human  infant.  Hence  the  identity  of  training  with 
selective  response.  (Compare  p.  30.)  {b)  Equally  impor- 
tant is  the  specific  coordination  of  different  factors  of  response 
which  takes  place.  There  is  not  merely  a  selection  of  the 
hand  reactions  which  effect  grasping,  but  of  the  particular 
visual  stimuH  which  call  out  just  these  reactions  and  no  others, 
and  an  estabHshment  of  connection  between  the  two.  But  the 
coordinating  does  not  stop  here.  Characteristic  temperature 
reactions  may  take  place  when  the  object  is  grasped.  These 
will  also  be  brought  in ;  later,  the  temperature  reaction  may 
be  connected  directly  with  the  optical  stimulus,  the  hand 
reaction  being  suppressed  —  as  a  bright  flame,  independent 
of  close  contact,  may  steer  one  away.     Or  the  child  in  handling 

'  As  matter  of  fact,  the  interconnection  is  so  great,  there  are  so  many 
paths  of  construction,  that  every  stimulus  brings  about  some  change  in  all 
of  the  organs  of  response.  We  are  accustomed  however  to  ignore  most  of 
these  modifications  of  the  total  organic  activity,  concentrating  upon  that  one 
which  is  most  specifically  adapted  to  the  most  urgent  stimulus  of  the 
qaoment. 


Preparation^  Unfolding,  and  Fortnal  Discipline     75 

the  object  pounds  with  it,  or  crumples  it,  and  a  sound  issues. 
The  ear-response  is  then  brought  into  the  system  of  re- 
sponse. If  a  certain  sound  (the  conventional  name)  is  made 
by  others  and  accompanies  the  activity,  response  of  both  ear 
and  the  vocal  apparatus  connected  with  auditory  stimulation 
will  also  become  an  associated  factor  in  the  complex  response.^ 
(3)  The  more  specialized  the  adjustment  of  response  and 
stimulus  to  each  other  (for,  taking  the  sequence  of  activities 
into  account,  the  stimuU  are  adapted  to  reactions  as  well  as 
reactions  to  stimuli)  the  more  rigid  and  the  less  generally 
available  is  the  training  secured.  In  equivalent  language, 
less  intellectual  or  educative  quaHty  attaches  to  the  training. 
The  usual  way  of  stating  this  fact  is  that  the  more  specialized 
the  reaction,  the  less  is  the  skill  acquired  in  practicing  and  per- 
fecting it  transferable  to  other  modes  of  behavior.  Accord- 
ing to  the  orthodox  theory  of  formal  discipline,  a  pupil  in 
studying  his  spelling  lesson  acquires,  besides  ability  to  spell 
those  particular  w^ords,  an  increase  of  power  of  observation, 
attention,  and  recollection  which  may  be  employed  whenever 
these  powers  are  needed.  As  matter  of  fact,  the  more  he  con- 
fines himself  to  noticing  and  fixating  the  forms  of  words, 
irrespective  of  connection  with  other  things  (such  as  the  mean- 
ing of  the  words,  the  context  in  which  they  are  habitually  used, 
the  derivation  and  classification  of  the  verbal  form,  etc.) 
the  less  likely  is  he  to  acquire  an  ability  which  can  be  used  for 
anything  except  the  mere  noting  of  verbal  visual  forms.  He 
may  not  even  be  increasing  his  abiHty  to  make  accurate  dis- 
tinctions among  geometrical  forms,  to  say  nothing  of  ability 
to  observe  in  general.  He  is  merely  selecting  the  stimuli 
supplied  by  the  forms  of  the  letters  and  the  motor  reactions  of 
oral  or  written  reproduction.  The  scope  of  coordination  (to 
use  our  prior  terminology)  is  extremely  limited.     The  con- 

*  TTiis  statement  should  be  compared  with  what  was  said  earlier  about  the 
sequential  ordering  of  responses  (p.  30).  It  is  merely  a  more  explicit  state* 
ment  of  the  way  in  which  that  consecutive  arrangement  occurs. 


76  Philosophy  of  Education 

nections  which  are  employed  m  other  observations  and  recol' 
lections  (or  reproductions)  are  deliberately  eliminated  when 
the  pupil  is  exercised  merely  upon  forms  of  letters  and  words. 
Having  been  excluded,  they  cannot  be  restored  when  needed. 
The  ability  secured  to  observe  and  to  recall  verbal  forms  is  not 
available  for  perceiving  and  recalling  other  things.  In  the 
ordinary  phraseology,  it  is  not  transferable.  But  the  wider 
the  context  —  that  is  to  say,  the  more  varied  the  stimuli  and 
responses  coordinated  —  the  more  the  ability  acquired  is  avail- 
able for  the  effective  performance  of  other  acts ;  not,  strictly 
speaking,  because  there  is  any  '  transfer,'  but  because  the  wide 
range  of  factors  employed  in  the  specific  act  is  equivalent  to  a 
broad  range  of  activity,  to  a  flexible,  instead  of  to  a  narrow  and 
rigid,  coordination. 

(4)  Going  to  the  root  of  the  matter,  the  fundamental  fallacy 
of  the  theory  is  its  dualism ;  that  is  to  say,  its  separation  of 
activities  and  capacities  from  subject  matter.  There  is  no 
such  thing  as  an  abiHty  to  see  or  hear  or  remember  in 
general ;  there  is  only  the  ability  to  see  or  hear  or  remember 
something.  To  talk  about  training  a  power,  mental  or  physical, 
in  general,  apart  from  the  subject  matter  involved  in  its  ex- 
ercise, is  nonsense.  Exercise  may  react  upon  circulation, 
breathing,  and  nutrition  so  as  to  develop  vigor  or  strength,  but 
this  reservoir  is  available  for  specific  ends  only  by  use  in  con- 
nection with  the  material  means  which  accomplish  them. 
Vigor  will  enable  a  man  to  play  tennis  or  golf  or  to  sail  a  boat 
better  than  he  would  if  he  were  weak.  But  only  by  em- 
ploying ball  and  racket,  ball  and  club,  sail  and  tiller,  in  definite 
ways  does  he  become  expert  in  any  one  of  them ;  and  expert- 
ness  in  one  secures  expertness  in  another  only  so  far  as  it  is 
either  a  sign  of  aptitude  for  fine  muscular  coordinations  or  as 
the  same  kind  of  coordination  is  involved  in  all  of  them. 
Moreover,  the  difference  between  the  training  of  ability  to  spell 
which  comes  from  taking  visual  forms  in  a  narrow  context 
and  one  which  takes  them  in  connection  with  the  activities 


Preparation,  Unfolding,  and  Formal  Discipline     77 

required  to  grasp  meaning,  such  as  context,  aflSliations  of 
descent,  etc.,  may  be  compared  to  the  difference  between  ex- 
ercises in  the  gymnasium  with  pulley  weights  to  *  develop ' 
certain  muscles,  and  a  game  or  sport.  The  former  is  uniform 
and  mechanical ;  it  is  rigidly  specialized.  The  latter  is  varied 
from  moment  to  moment ;  no  two  acts  are  quite  alike ;  novel 
emergencies  have  to  be  met ;  the  coordinations  forming  have 
to  be  kept  flexible  and  elastic.  Consequently,  the  training 
is  much  more  *  general' ;  that  is  to  say,  it  covers  a  wider  terri- 
tory and  includes  more  factors.  Exactly  the  same  thing  holds 
of  special  and  general  education  of  the  mind. 

A  monotonously  uniform  exercise  may  by  practice  give 
great  skill  in  one  special  act;  but  the  skUl  is  limited  to  that 
act,  be  it  bookkeeping  or  calculations  in  logarithms  or  ex- 
periments in  hydrocarbons.  One  may  be  an  authority  in  a 
particular  field  and  yet  of  more  than  usually  poor  judgment 
in  matters  not  closely  alUed,  unless  the  training  in  the  special 
field  has  been  of  a  kind  to  ramify  into  the  subject  matter  of 
the  other  fields. 

(5)  Consequently,  such  powers  as  observation,  recollection, 
judgment,  aesthetic  taste,  represent  organized  results  of  the  oc- 
cupation of  native  active  tendencies  with  certain  subject- 
matters.  A  man  does  not  observe  closely  and  fully  by  press- 
ing a  button  for  the  observing  faculty  to  get  to  work  (in  other 
words  by  *  willing  '  to  observe) ;  but  if  he  has  something  to  do 
which  can  be  accomplished  successfully  only  through  intensive 
and  extensive  use  of  eye  and  hand,  he  naturally  observes.  Ob- 
servation is  an  outcome,  a  consequence,  of  the  interaction  of 
sense  organ  and  subject  matter.  It  will  vary,  accordingly, 
with  the  subject  matter  employed. 

It  is  consequently  futile  to  set  up  even  the  ulterior 
development  of  faculties  of  observation,  memory,  etc.,  imless 
we  have  first  determined  what  sort  of  subject  matter  we  wish 
the  pupil  to  become  expert  in  observing  and  recalling  and  for 
s^hat  purpose.    And  it  is  only  repeating  in  another  form  what 


78  Philosophy  of  Edttcation 

has  already  been  said,  to  declare  that  the  criterion  here  must  be 
social.  We  want  the  person  to  note  and  recall  and  judge  those 
things  which  make  him  an  eflfective  competent  member  of 
the  group  in  which  he  is  associated  with  others.  Otherwise 
we  might  as  well  set  the  pupil  to  observing  carefully  cracks  on 
the  wall  and  set  him  to  memorizing  meaningless  lists  of  words 
in  an  unknown  tongue  —  which  is  about  what  we  do  in  fact 
when  we  give  way  to  the  doctrine  of  formal  discipline.  If 
the  observing  habits  of  a  botanist  or  chemist  or  engineer  are 
better  habits  than  those  which  are  thus  formed,  it  is  because 
they  deal  with  subject  matter  which  is  more  significant  in  life. 
In  concluding  this  portion  of  the  discussion,  we  note  that 
the  distinction  between  special  and  general  education  has  noth- 
ing to  do  with  the  transferability  of  function  or  power.  In 
the  literal  sense,  any  transfer  is  miraculous  and  impossible. 
But  some  activities  are  broad;  they  involve  a  coordination 
of  many  factors.  Their  development  demands  continuous 
alteration  and  readjustment.  As  conditions  change,  certain 
factors  are  subordinated,  and  others  which  had  been  of  mino^ 
importance  come  to  the  front.  There  is  constant  redistribu- 
tion of  the  focus  of  the  action,  as  is  seen  in  the  illustration  of  a 
game  as  over  against  pulling  a  fitted  weight  by  a  series  of  uni- 
form motions.  Thus  there  is  practice  in  prompt  making  of  new 
combinations  with  the  focus  of  activity  shifted  to  meet  change 
in  subject  matter.  Wherever  an  activity  is  broad  in  scope 
(that  is,  involves  the  coordinating  of  a  large  variety  of  sub- 
activities),  and  is  constantly  and  unexpectedly  obliged  to 
change  direction  in  its  progressive  development,  general  educa- 
tion is  bound  to  result.  For  this  is  what  '  general '  means ; 
broad  and  flexible.  In  practice,  education  meets  these  condi- 
tions, and  hence  is  general,  in  the  degree  in  which  it  takes  ac- 
count of  social  relationships.  A  person  may  become  expert 
in  technical  philosophy,  or  philology,  or  mathematics  or  en- 
gineering or  financiering,  and  be  inept  and  ill-advised  in  his 
action  and  judgment  outside  of  his  specialty.    If  however  his 


Preparaiion,  Unfolding,  and  Formal  Discipline     79 

concern  with  these  technical  subject  matters  has  been  con- 
nected with  human  activities  having  social  breadth,  the 
range  of  active  responses  called  into  play  and  flexibly  inte- 
grated is  much  wider.  Isolation  of  subject  matter  from  a 
social  context  is  the  chief  obstruction  in  current  practice  to 
securing  a  general  training  of  mind.  Literature,  art,  religion, 
when  thus  dissociated,  are  just  as  narrowing  as  the  technical 
things  which  the  professional  upholders  of  general  education 
strenuously  oppose. 

Sximmary.  —  The  conception  that  the  result  of  the  educa- 
tive process  is  capacity  for  further  education  stands  in  contrast 
with  some  other  ideas  which  have  profoimdly  influenced 
practice.  The  first  contrasting  conception  considered  is  that  of 
preparing  or  getting  ready  for  some  future  duty  or  privilege. 
Specific  evil  effects  were  pointed  out  which  result  from  the  fact 
that  this  aim  diverts  attention  of  both  teacher  and  taught  from 
the  only  point  to  which  it  may  be  fruitfully  directed  —  namely, 
taking  advantage  of  the  needs  and  possibilities  of  the  im- 
mediate present.  Consequently  it  defeats  its  own  professed 
purpose.  The  notion  that  education  is  an  unfolding  from 
within  appears  to  have  more  Ukeness  to  the  conception  of 
growth  which  has  been  set  forth.  But  as  worked  out  in  the 
theories  of  Froebel  and  Hegel,  it  involves  ignoring  the  inter- 
action of  present  organic  tendencies  with  the  present  environ- 
ment, just  as  much  as  the  notion  of  preparation.  Some 
impHdt  whole  is  regarded  as  given  ready-made  and  the  sig- 
nificance of  growth  is  merely  transitory ;  it  is  not  an  end  in  itself, 
but  simply  a  means  of  making  explicit  what  is  already  implicit. 
Since  that  which  is  not  explicit  cannot  be  made  definite  use 
of,  something  has  be  be  found  to  represent  it.  According  to 
Froebel,  the  mystic  symbolic  value  of  certain  objects  and  acts 
(largely  mathematical)  stand  for  the  Absolute  Whole  which  is 
in  process  of  unfolding.  According  to  Hegel,  existing  institu- 
tions are  its  effective  actual  representatives.  Emphasis 
upon  symbols  and  institutions    tends   to  divert  perception 


8o  Philosophy  of  Education 

from  the  direct  growth  of  experience  in  richness  of  meaning. 
Another  influential  but  defective  theory  is  that  which  con- 
ceives that  mind  has,  at  birth,  certain  mental  faculties  or 
powers,  sui  as  perceiving,  remembering,  willing,  judging, 
generalizing,  attending,  etc.,  and  that  education  is  the  train- 
ing of  these  faculties  through  repeated  exercise.  This  theory 
treats  subject  matter  as  comparatively  external  and  indifferent, 
its  value  residing  simply  in  the  fact  that  it  may  occasion  ex- 
ercise of  the  general  powers.  Criticism  was  directed  upon  this 
separation  of  the  alleged  powers  from  one  another  and  from 
the  material  upon  which  they  act.  The  outcome  of  the  theory 
in  practice  was  shown  to  be  an  undue  emphasis  upon  the  train- 
ing of  narrow  speciaHzed  modes  of  skill  at  the  expense  of  ini- 
tiative, inventiveness,  and  readaptabiHty  —  qualities  which 
depend  upon  the  broad  and  consecutive  interaction  of  specific 
activities  with  one  another. 


CHAPTER  VI 

EDUCATION    AS    CONSERVATIVE    AND    PROGRESSIVE 

1.  Education  as  Formation.  —  We  now  come  to  a  type  o* 
theory  which  denies  the  existence  of  faculties  and  emphasizes 
the  unique  r61e  of  subject  matter  in  the  development  of  mental 
and  moral  disposition.  According  to  it,  education  is  neither 
a  process  of  unfolding  from  within  nor  is  it  a  training  of  facul- 
ties resident  in  mind  itself.  It  is  rather  the  formation  of  mind 
by  setting  up  certain  associations  or  connections  of  content  by 
means  of  a  subject  matter  presented  from  without.  Education 
proceeds  by  instruction  taken  in  a  strictly  literal  sense,  a 
building  into  the  mind  from  without.  That  education  is  form- 
ative of  mind  is  not  questioned ;  it  is  the  conception  already 
propoimded.  But  formation  here  has  a  technical  meaning, 
dependent  upon  the  idea  of  something  operating  from  without. 

Herbart  is  the  best  historical  representative  of  this  type  of 
theory.  He  denies  absolutely  the  existence  of  innate  faculties. 
The  mind  is  simply  endowed  with  the  power  of  producing 
various  qualities  in  reaction  to  the  various  realities  which  act 
upon  it.  These  qualitatively  different  reactions  are  called 
presentations  {Vorstellungen).  Every  presentation  once  called 
into  being  persists;  it  maybe  driven  below  the  "  threshold  " 
of  consciousness  by  new  and  stronger  presentations,  produced 
by  the  reaction  of  the  soul  to  new  material,  but  its  activity  con- 
tinues by  its  own  inherent  momentum,  below  the  surface  of  con- 
sciousness. What  are  termed  faculties  —  attention,  memory, 
thinking,  perception,  even  the  sentiments,  are  arrangements, 
associations,  and  complications,  formed  by  the  interaction  of 
these  submerged  presentations  with  one  another  and  with  new 

6  8l 


82  Philosophy  of  Education 

presentations.  Perception,  for  example,  is  the  complication  of 
presentations  which  result  from  the  rise  of  old  presentations 
to  greet  and  combine  with  new  ones ;  memory  is  the  evoking 
of  an  old  presentation  above  the  threshold  of  consciousness  by 
getting  entangled  with  another  presentation,  etc.  Pleasure  is 
the  result  of  reenforcement  among  the  independent  activities 
of  presentations ;  pain  of  their  pulling  different  ways,  etc. 

The  concrete  character  of  mind  consists,  then,  wholly  of  the 
various  arrangements  formed  by  the  various  presentations  in 
their  different  quahties.  The  'furniture'  of  the  mind  is  the 
mind.  Mind  is  wholly  a  matter  of  *'  contents."  The  educa- 
tional impHcations  of  this  doctrine  are  threefold,  (i)  This  or 
that  kind  of  mind  is  formed  by  the  use  of  objects  which  evoke 
this  or  that  kind  of  reaction  and  which  produce  this  or  that 
arrangement  among  the  reactions  called  out.  The  formation 
of  mind  is  wholly  a  matter  of  the  presentation  of  the  proper 
educational  materials.  (2)  Since  the  earlier  presentations  con- 
stitute the  "  apperceiving  organs  "  which  control  the  assimila- 
tion of  new  presentations,  their  character  is  all  important.  The 
effect  of  new  presentations  is  to  reenforce  groupings  previously 
formed.  The  business  of  the  educator  is,  first,  to  select  the 
proper  material  in  order  to  fix  the  nature  of  the  original  re- 
actions, and,  secondly,  to  arrange  the  sequence  of  subsequent 
presentations  on  the  basis  of  the  store  of  ideas  secured  by  prior 
transactions.  The  control  is  from  behind,  from  the  past, 
instead  of,  as  in  the  unfolding  conception,  in  the  ultimate  goal. 
(3)  Certain  formal  steps  of  all  method  in  teaching  may  be 
laid  down.  Presentation  of  new  subject  matter  is  obviously 
the  central  thing,  but  since  knowing  consists  in  the  way  in 
which  this  interacts  with  the  contents  already  submerged 
below  consciousness,  the  first  thing  is  the  step  of  '  preparation,' 
—  that  is,  calKng  into  special  activity  and  getting  above  the 
floor  of  consciousness  those  older  presentations  which  are  to 
assimilate  the  new  one.  Then  after  the  presentation,  follow 
the  processes  of  interaction  of  new  and  old ;  then  comes  the 


Education  as  Conservative  and  Progressive         S^ 

application  of  the  newly  formed  content  to  the  performance  of 
some  task.  Everything  must  go  through  this  course ;  conse- 
quently there  is  a  perfectly  imiform  method  in  instruction  in 
all  subjects  for  all  pupils  of  ah  ages. 

Herbart's  great  service  lay  in  taking  the  work  of  teach- 
ing out  of  the  region  of  routine  and  accident.  He  brought  it 
into  the  sphere  of  conscious  method ;  it  became  a  conscious 
business  with  a  definite  aim  and  procedure,  instead  of  being  a 
compound  of  casual  inspiration  and  subservience  to  tradition. 
Moreover,  everything  in  teaching  and  discipline  could  be 
specified,  instead  of  our  having  to  be  content  with  vague  and 
more  or  less  mystic  generahties  about  ultimate  ideals  and 
speculative  spiritual  symbols.  He  aboUshed  the  notion  of 
ready-made  faculties,  which  might  be  trained  by  exercise  upon 
any  sort  of  material,  and  made  attention  to  concrete  subject 
matter,  to  the  content,  all-important.  Herbart  undoubtedly 
has  had  a  greater  influence  in  bringing  to  the  front  questions 
connected  with  the  material  of  study  than  any  other  educa- 
tional philosopher.  He  stated  problems  of  method  from  the 
standpoint  of  their  connection  with  subject  matter :  method 
having  to  do  with  the  manner  and  sequence  of  presenting  new 
subject  matter  to  insure  its  proper  interaction  with  old. 

The  fundamental  theoretical  defect  of  this  view  lies  in 
ignoring  the  existence  in  a  Hving  being  of  active  and  specific 
functions  which  are  developed  in  the  redirection  and  combina- 
tion which  occur  as  they  are  occupied  with  their  environment. 
The  theory  represents  the  Schoolmaster  come  to  his  own. 
This  fact  expresses  at  once  its  strength  and  its  weakness.  The 
conception  that  the  mind  consists  of  what  has  been  taught, 
and  that  the  importance  of  what  has  been  taught  consists  in 
its  availability  for  further  teaching,  reflects  the  pedagogue's 
view  of  Hfe.  The  philosophy  is  eloquent  about  the  duty  of 
the  teacher  in  instructing  pupils ;  it  is  almost  silent  regarding 
his  privilege  of  learning.  It  emphasizes  the  influence  of  in- 
tellectual environment  upon  the  mind;  it  slurs  over  the  fact 


84  Philosophy  oj  Edtication 

that  the  envirojiment  involves  a  personal  sharing  in  common 
experiences.  It  exaggerates  beyond  reason  the  possibilities  of 
consciously  formulated  and  used  methods,  and  underestimates 
the  role  of  vital,  unconscious,  attitudes.  It  insists  upon  the 
old,  the  past,  and  passes  lightly  over  the  operation  of  the  genu- 
inely novel  and  unforeseeable.  It  takes,  in  brief,  everything 
educational  into  account  save  its  essence, — vital  energy  seeking 
opportunity  for  effective  exercise.  AH  education  forms  char- 
acter, mental  and  moral,  but  formation  consists  in  the  selec- 
tion and  coordination  of  native  activities  so  that  they  may 
utilize  the  subject  matter  of  the  social  environment.  More- 
over, the  formation  is  not  orily  a  formation  of  native  activities, 
but  it  takes  place  through  them.  It  is  a  process  of  recon- 
struction, reorganization. 

2.  Education  as  Recapitulation  and  Retrospection.  —  A 
peculiar  combination  of  the  ideas  of  development  and  forma- 
tion from  without  has  given  rise  to  the  recapitulation  theory 
of  education,  biological  and  cultural.  The  individual  develops, 
but  his  proper  development  consists  in  repeating  in  orderly 
stages  the  past  evolution  of  animal  Ufe  and  human  histor}^ 
The  former  recapitulation  occurs  physiologically;  the  latter 
should  be  made  to  occur  by  means  of  education.  The  alleged 
biological  truth  that  the  individual  in  his  growth  from  the 
simple  embryo  to  maturity  repeats  the  history  of  the  evolution 
of  animal  life  in  the  progress  of  forms  from  the  simplest  to  the 
most  complex  (or  expressed  technically,  that  ontogenesis  paral- 
lels phylogenesis)  does  not  concern  us,  save  as  it  is  supposed  to 
aflford  scientific  foundation  for  cultural  recapitulation  of  the 
past.  Cultural  recapitulation  says,  first,  that  children  at  a 
certain  age  are  in  the  mental  and  moral  condition  of  savagery ; 
their  instincts  are  vagrant  and  predatory  because  their  ances- 
tors at  one  time  lived  such  a  life.  Consequently  (so  it  is  con- 
cluded) the  proper  subject  matter  of  their  education  at  this 
time  is  the  material  —  especially  the  Hterary  material  of  myths, 
folk-tale,  and  song  —  produced  by  htmianity  in  the  analogous 


Education  as  Conservative  and  Progressive  85 

stage.  Then  the  child  passes  on  to  something  corresponding, 
say,  to  the  pastoral  stage,  and  so  on  till  at  the  time  when  he  is 
ready  to  take  part  in  contemporary  life,  he  arrives  at  the 
present  epoch  of  culture. 

In  this  detailed  and  consistent  form,  the  theory,  outside  of  a 
small  school  in  Germany  (followers  of  Herbart  for  the  most 
part),  has  had  little  currency.  But  the  idea  which  underlies 
it  is  that  education  is  essentially  retrospective ;  that  it  looks 
primarily  to  the  past  and  especially  to  the  Hterary  products  of 
the  past,  and  that  mind  is  adequately  formed  in  the  degree  in 
which  it  is  patterned  upon  the  spiritual  heritage  of  the  past. 
This  idea  has  had  such  immense  influence  upon  higher  instruc- 
tion especially,  that  it  is  worth  examination  in  its  extreme 
formulation. 

In  the  first  place,  its  biological  basis  is  fallacious.  Em 
bryonic  growth  of  the  human  infant  preserves,  without  doubt, 
some  of  the  traits  of  lower  forms  of  life.  But  in  no  respect  is  it 
a  strict  traversing  of  past  stages.  If  there  were  any  strict 
'  law  '  of  repetition,  evolutionary  development  would  clearly 
not  have  taken  place.  Each  new  generation  would  simply 
have  repeated  its  predecessors'  existence.  Development,  in 
short,  has  taken  place  by  the  entrance  of  short-cuts  and  al- 
terations in  the  prior  scheme  of  growth.  And  this  suggests  that 
the  aim  of  education  is  to  facilitate  such  short-circuited  growth. 
The  great  advantage  of  immaturity,  educationally  speaking, 
is  that  it  enables  us  to  emancipate  the  young  from  the  need  of 
dwelling  in  an  outgrown  past.  The  business  of  education  is 
rather  to  liberate  the  young  from  reviving  and  retraversing  the 
past  than  to  lead  them  to  a  recapitulation  of  it.  The  social 
environment  of  the  young  is  constituted  by  the  presence  and 
action  of  the  habits  of  thinking  and  f  eehng  of  civilized  men.  To 
ignore  the  directive  influence  of  this  present  environment 
upon  the  young  is  simply  to  abdicate  the  educational  function. 
A  biologist  has  said :  "  The  history  of  development  in  differ- 
ent animals  .  .  .  offers  to  us  ...  a  series  of  ingenious,  de- 


86  Philosophy  of  Education 

termined,  varied  but  more  or  less  unsuccessful  efforts  to  escape 
from  the  necessity  of  recapitulating,  and  to  substitute  for  the 
ancestral  method  a  more  direct  method."  Surely  it  would  be 
foolish  if  education  did  not  deliberately  attempt  to  facilitate 
similar  efforts  in  conscious  experience  so  that  they  become 
increasingly  successful. 

The  two  factors  of  truth  in  the  conception  may  easily  be  dis- 
entangled from  association  with  the  false  context  which  per- 
verts them.  On  the  biological  side  we  have  simply  the  fact 
that  any  infant  starts  with  precisely  the  assortment  of  im- 
pulsive activities  with  which  he  does  start,  they  being  blind, 
and  many  of  them  conflicting  with  one  another,  casual, 
sporadic,  and  unadapted  to  their  immediate  environment. 
The  other  point  is  that  it  is  a  part  of  wisdom  to  utilize  the 
products  of  past  history  so  far  as  they  are  of  help  for  the  future. 
Since  they  represent  the  results  of  prior  experience,  their  value 
for  future  experience  may,  of  coiurse,  be  indefinitely  great. 
Literatures  produced  in  the  past  are,  so  far  as  men  are  now 
in  possession  and  use  of  them,  a  part  of  the  present  environ- 
ment of  individuals;  but  there  is  an  enormous  difference 
between  availing  ourselves  of  them  as  present  resources  and 
taking  them  as  standards  and  patterns  in  their  retrospective 
character. 

(i)  The  distortion  of  the  first  point  usually  comes 
about  through  misuse  of  the  idea  of  heredity.  It  is  as- 
sumed that  heredity  means  that  past  Hfe  has  somehow  pre- 
determined the  main  traits  of  an  individual,  and  that  they  are 
so  fixed  that  Httle  serious  change  can  be  introduced  into  them. 
Thus  taken,  the  influence  of  heredity  is  opposed  to  that  of  the 
environment,  and  the  eflScacy  of  the  latter  belittled.  But 
for  educational  purposes  heredity  means  neither  more  nor  less 
than  the  original  endowment  of  an  individual.  Education 
must  take  the  being  as  he  is;  that  a  particular  individual 
has  just  such  and  such  an  equipment  of  native  activities  is  a 
basic  fact.     That  they  were  produced  in  such  and  such  a  way, 


Education  as  Conservative  and  Progressive         87 

or  that  they  are  derived  from  one's  ancestry,  is  not  especially 
important  for  the  educator,  however  it  may  be  with  the 
biologist,  as  compared  with  the  fact  that  they  now  exist. 
Suppose  one  had  to  advise  or  direct  a  person  regarding  his 
inheritance  of  property.  The  fallacy  of  assuming  that  the 
fact  it  is  an  inheritance,  predetermines  its  future  use,  is 
obvious.  The  advisor  is  concerned  with  making  the  best  use 
of  what  is  there  —  putting  it  at  work  under  the  most  favor- 
able conditions.  Obviously  he  cannot  utilize  what  is  not 
there ;  neither  can  the  educator.  In  this  sense,  heredity  is  a 
limit  of  education.  Recognition  of  this  fact  prevents  the 
waste  of  energy  and  the  irritation  that  ensue  from  the  too 
prevalent  habit  of  trying  to  make  by  instruction  something  out 
of  an  individual  which  he  is  not  naturally  fitted  to  become. 
But  the  doctrine  does  not  determine  what  use  shall  be  made  of 
the  capacities  which  exist.  And,  except  in  the  case  of  the  im- 
becile, these  original  capacities  are  much  more  varied  and  po- 
tential, even  in  the  case  of  the  more  stupid,  than  we  as  yet 
know  properly  how  to  utilize.  Consequently,  while  a  careful 
study  of  the  native  aptitudes  and  deficiencies  of  an  indi- 
vidual is  always  a  preliminary  necessity,  the  subsequent  and 
important  step  is  to  furnish  an  environment  which  will  ade- 
quately function  whatever  activities  are  present. 

The  relation  of  heredity  and  environment  is  well  expressed 
in  the  case  of  language.  If  a  being  had  no  vocal  organs  from 
which  issue  articulate  sounds,  if  he  had  no  auditory  or  other 
sense-receptors  and  no  connections  between  the  two  sets 
of  apparatus,  it  would  be  a  sheer  waste  of  time  to  try  to  teach 
him  to  converse.  He  is  born  short  in  that  respect,  and  educa- 
tion must  accept  the  limitation.  But  if  he  has  this  native 
equipment,  its  possession  in  no  way  guarantees  that  he  will 
ever  talk  any  language  or  what  language  he  will  talk.  The 
environment  in  which  his  activities  occur  and  by  which  they 
are  carried  into  execution  settles  these  things.  If  he  lived 
in  a  dumb  unsocial  environment  where  men  refused  to  talk  to 


88  Philosophy  of  Education 

one  another  and  used  only  that  minimum  of  gestures  without 
which  they  could  not  get  along,  vocal  language  would  be  as  un- 
achieved by  him  as  if  he  had  no  vocal  organs.  If  the  sounds 
which  he  makes  occur  in  a  medium  of  persons  speaking  the 
Chinese  language,  the  activities  which  make  like  sounds  wiU 
be  selected  and  coordinated.  This  illustration  may  be  ap- 
plied to  the  entire  range  of  the  educabihty  of  any  individual. 
It  places  the  heritage  from  the  past  in  its  right  connection  with 
the  demands  and  opportunities  of  the  present. 

(2)  The  theory  that  the  proper  subject  matter  of  instruc- 
tion is  found  in  the  culture-products  of  past  ages  (either  in  gen- 
eral, or  more  specifically  in  the  particular  Hteratures  which 
were  produced  in  the  culture  epoch  which  is  supposed  to  cor- 
respond with  the  stage  of  development  of  those  taught) 
affords  another  instance  of  that  divorce  between  the  process  and 
product  of  growth  which  has  been  criticized.  To  keep  the  pro- 
cess aKve,  to  keep  it  ahve  in  ways  which  make  it  easier  to  keep 
it  alive  in  the  future,  is  the  function  of  educational  subject 
matter.  But  an  individual  can  Uve  only  in  the  present.  The 
present  is  not  just  something  which  comes  after  the  past; 
much  less  something  produced  by  it.  It  is  what  life  is  in  leav- 
ing the  past  behind  it.  The  study  of  past  products  will  not 
help  us  understand  the  present,  because  the  present  is  not 
due  to  the  products,  but  to  the  Hfe  of  which  they  were  the 
products.  A  knowledge  of  the  past  and  its  heritage  is  of 
great  significance  when  it  enters  into  the  present,  but  not 
otherwise.  And  the  mistake  of  making  the  records  and  re- 
mains of  the  past  the  main  material  of  education  is  that  it 
cuts  the  vital  connection  of  present  and  past,  and  tends  to 
make  the  past  a  rival  of  the  present  and  the  present  a  more  or 
less  futile  imitation  of  the  past.  Under  such  circumstances, 
culture  becomes  an  ornament  and  solace;  a  refuge  and  an 
asylum.  Men  escape  from  the  crudities  of  the  present  to 
live  in  its  imagined  refinements,  instead  of  using  what  the 
past  ofiers  as  an  agency  for  ripening  these  crudities. 


Education  as  Conservative  and  Progressive         89 

The  present,  in  short,  generates  the  problems  which  lead  us 
to  search  the  past  for  suggestion,  and  which  supplies  meaning 
to  what  we  find  when  we  search.  The  past  is  the  past  precisely 
because  it  does  not  include  what  is  characteristic  in  the  present. 
The  moving  present  includes  the  past  on  condition  that  it  uses 
the  past  to  direct  its  own  movement.  The  past  is  a  great  re- 
source for  the  imagination;  it  adds  a  new  dimension  to  Ufe, 
but  on  condition  that  it  be  seen  as  the  past  of  the  present,  and 
not  as  another  and  disconnected  world.  The  principle  which 
makes  Httle  of  the  present  act  of  living  and  operation  of  growing, 
the  only  thing  always  present,  naturally  looks  to  the  past  be- 
cause the  future  goal  which  it  sets  up  is  remote  and  empty. 
But  having  turned  its  back  upon  the  present,  it  has  no  way  of 
returning  to  it  laden  with  the  spoils  of  the  past.  A  mind  that 
is  adequately  sensitive  to  the  needs  and  occasions  of  the  present 
actuality  will  have  the  livehest  of  motives  for  interest  in  the 
background  of  the  present,  and  will  never  have  to  hunt  for  a 
way  back  because  it  will  never  have  lost  connection. 

3.  Education  as  Reconstruction.  —  In  its  contrast  with  the 
ideas  both  of  unfolding  of  latent  powers  from  within,  and  of 
formation  from  without,  whether  by  physical  nature  or  by  the 
cultural  products  of  the  past,  the  ideal  of  growth  results  in  the 
conception  that  education  is  a  constant  reorganizing  or  recon- 
structing of  experience.  It  has  all  the  time  an  immediate  end, 
and  so  far  as  activity  is  educative,  it  reaches  that  end  —  the 
direct  transformation  of  the  quahty  of  experience.  Infancy, 
youth,  adult  life,  —  all  stand  on  the  same  educative  level  in  the 
sense  that  what  is  really  learned  at  any  and  every  stage  of 
experience  constitutes  the  value  of  that  experience,  and  in 
the  sense  that  it  is  the  chief  business  of  life  at  every  point  to 
make  living  thus  contribute  to  an  enrichment  of  its  own  per- 
ceptible meaning. 

We  thus  reach  a  technical  definition  of  education :  It  is, 
that  reconstruction  or  reorganization  of  experience  which  adds 
to  the  meaning  of  experience,  and  which  increases  ability  to 


po  Philosophy  of  Education 

direct  the  course  of  subsequent  experience,  (i)  The  incre- 
ment of  meaning  corresponds  to  the  increased  perception  of  the 
connections  and  continuities  of  the  activities  in  which  we  are 
engaged.  The  activity  begins  in  an  impulsive  form ;  that  is, 
it  is  blind.  It  does  not  know  what  it  is  about ;  that  is  to  say, 
what  are  its  interactions  with  other  activities.  An  activity 
which  brings  education  or  instruction  with  it  makes  one  aware 
of  some  of  the  connections  which  had  been  imperceptible. 
To  recur  to  our  simple  example,  a  child  who  reaches  for  a  bright 
light  gets  burned.  Henceforth  he  knows  that  a  certain  act  of 
touching  in  connection  with  a  certain  act  of  vision  (and  vice- 
versa)  means  heat  and  pain ;  or,  a  certain  light  means  a  source 
of  heat.  The  acts  by  which  a  scientific  man  in  his  laboratory 
learns  more  about  flame  differ  no  whit  in  principle.  By 
doing  certain  things,  he  makes  perceptible  certain  connections 
of  heat  with  other  things,  which  had  been  previously  ignored. 
Thus  his  acts  in  relation  to  these  things  get  more  meaning; 
he  knows  better  what  he  is  doing  or  *  is  about '  when  he  has  to 
do  with  them ;  he  can  intend  consequences  instead  of  just  let- 
ting them  happen  —  all  synonymous  ways  of  saying  the  same 
thing.  At  the  same  stroke,  the  flame  has  gained  in  meaning ; 
all  that  is  known  about  combustion,  oxidation,  about  Ught  and 
temperature,  may  become  an  intrinsic  part  of  its  intellectual 
content. 

(2)  The  other  side  of  an  educative  experience  is  an  added 
power  of  subsequent  direction  or  control.  To  say  that  one 
knows  what  he  is  about,  or  can  intend  certain  consequences, 
is  to  say,  of  course,  that  he  can  better  anticipate  what  is  going 
to  happen;  that  he  can,  therefore,  get  ready  or  prepare  in 
advance  so  as  to  secure  beneficial  consequences  and  avert  unde- 
sirable ones.  A  genuinely  educative  experience,  then,  one  in 
which  instruction  is  conveyed  and  ability  increased,  is  con- 
tradistinguished from  a  routine  activity  on  one  hand,  and  a 
capricious  activity  on  the  other,  (a)  In  the  latter  one  '  does 
not  care  what  happens  ' ;  one  just  lets  himself  go  and  avoids 


i 


Education  as  Conservative  and  Progressive         91 

tonnecting  the  consequences  of  one's  act  (the  evidences  of  its 
connections  with  other  things)  with  the  act.  It  is  customary 
to  frown  upon  such  aimless  random  activity,  treating  it  as 
willful  miscliief  or  carelessness  or  lawlessness.  But  there  is  a 
tendency  to  seek  the  cause  of  such  aimless  activities  in  the 
youth's  own  disposition,  isolated  from  everything  else.  But 
in  fact  such  activity  is  explosive,  and  due  to  maladjustment 
with  surroundings.  Individuals  act  capriciously  whenever 
they  act  under  external  dictation,  or  from  being  told,  without 
having  a  purpose  of  their  own  or  perceiving  the  bearing  of  the 
deed  upon  other  acts.  One  may  learn  by  doing  something 
which  he  does  not  understand;  even  in  the  most  intelligent 
action,  we  do  much  which  we  do  not  mean,  because  the  largest 
portion  of  the  connections  of  the  act  we  consciously  intend  are 
not  perceived  or  anticipated.  But  we  learn  only  because  after 
the  act  is  performed  we  note  results  which  we  had  not  noted  be- 
fore. But  much  work  in  school  consists  in  setting  up  rules  by 
which  pupils  are  to  act  of  such  a  sort  that  even  after  pupils  have 
acted,  they  are  not  led  to  see  the  connection  between  the  result 
—  say  the  answer  —  and  the  method  pursued.  So  far  as  they 
are  concerned,  the  whole  thing  is  a  trick  and  a  kind  of  miracle. 
Such  action  is  essentially  capricious,  and  leads  to  capricious 
habits,  {h)  Routine,  action,  action  which  is  automatic,  may 
increase  skill  to  do  a  particular  thing.  In  so  far,  it  might  be 
said  to  have  an  educative  effect.  But  it  does  not  lead  to  new 
perceptions  of  bearings  and  connections ;  it  limits  rather  than 
widens  the  meaning-horizon.  And  since  the  environment 
changes  and  our  way  of  acting  has  to  be  modified  in  order  suc- 
cessfully to  keep  a  balanced  connection  with  things,  an  isolated 
uniform  way  of  acting  becomes  disastrous  at  some  critical 
moment.     The  vaunted  '  skill '  turns  out  gross  ineptitude. 

The  essential  contrast  of  the  idea  of  education  as  continuous 
reconstruction  with  the  other  one-sided  conceptions  which  have 
been  criticized  in  this  and  the  previous  chapter  is  that  it  identi- 
fies the  end  (the  result)  and  the  process.    This  is  verbally  self- 


92  Philosophy  of  Education 

contradictory,  but  only  verbally.  It  means  that  experience 
as  an  active  process  occupies  time  and  that  its  later  period 
completes  its  earlier  portion;  it  brings  to  light  connections 
involved,  but  hitherto  unperceived.  The  later  outcome  thus 
reveals  the  meaning  of  the  earlier,  while  the  experience  as  a 
whole  estabUshes  a  bent  or  disposition  toward  the  things  pos- 
sessing this  meaning.  Every  such  continuous  experience  or 
activity  is  educative,  and  all  education  resides  in  having  such 
experiences. 

It  remains  only  to  point  out  (what  will  receive  more  ample 
attention  later)  that  the  reconstruction  of  experience  may  be 
social  as  well  as  personal.  For  purposes  of  simplification  we 
have  spoken  in  the  earHer  chapters  somewhat  as  if  the  educa- 
tion of  the  inmiature  which  fills  them  with  the  spirit  of  the 
social  group  to  which  they  belong,  were  a  sort  of  catching  up 
of  the  child  with  the  aptitudes  and  resources  of  the  adult 
group.  In  static  societies,  societies  which  make  the  mainte- 
nance of  established  custom  their  measure  of  value,  this  con- 
ception applies  in  the  main.  But  not  in  progressive  com- 
munities. They  endeavor  to  shape  the  experiences  of  the 
young  so  that  instead  of  reproducing  current  habits,  better 
habits  shall  be  formed,  and  thus  the  future  adult  society  be  an 
improvement  on  their  own.  Men  have  long  had  some  intima- 
tion of  the  extent  to  which  education  may  be  consciously  used 
to  eliminate  obvious  social  evils  through  starting  the  young 
on  paths  which  shall  not  produce  these  ills,  and  some  idea  of 
the  extent  in  which  education  may  be  made  an  instrument  of 
realizing  the  better  hopes  of  men.  But  we  are  doubtless  far 
from  realizing  the  potential  efl&cacy  of  education  as  a  con- 
structive agency  of  improving  society,  from  realizing  that  it 
represents  not  only  a  development  of  children  and  youth  but 
also  of  the  future  society  of  which  they  will  be  the  constituents. 

Summary.  —  Education  may  be  conceived  either  retrospec- 
tively or  prospectively.  That  is  to  say,  it  may  be  treated  as 
process  of  accommodating  the  future  to  the  past,  or  as  an  utili- 


Education  as  Conservative  and  Progressive         93 

zation  of  the  past  for  a  resource  in  a  developirig  future.  The 
former  finds  its  standards  and  patterns  in  what  has  gone  be- 
fore. The  mind  may  be  regarded  as  a  group  of  contents 
resulting  from  having  certain  things  presented.  In  this 
case,  the  earher  presentations  constitute  the  material  to 
which  the  later  are  to  be  assimilated.  Emphasis  upon  the 
value  of  the  early  experiences  of  immature  beings  is  most 
important,  especially  because  of  the  tendency  to  regard  them 
as  of  httle  account.  But  these  experiences  do  not  consist  of 
externally  presented  material,  but  of  interaction  of  native 
activities  with  the  environment  which  progressively  modifies 
both  the  activities  and  the  environment.  The  defect  of  the 
Herbartian  theory  of  formation  through  presentations  con- 
sists in  slighting  this  constant  interaction  and  change. 

The  same  principle  of  criticism  appUes  to  theories  which 
find  the  primary  subject  matter  of  study  in  the  cultural 
products  —  especially  the  Hterary  products  —  of  man's  his- 
tory. Isolated  from  their  connection  with  the  present  en- 
vironment in  which  individuals  have  to  act,  they  become  a 
kind  of  rival  and  distracting  environment.  Their  value  lies 
in  their  use  to  increase  the  meaning  of  the  things  with  whick 
we  have  actively  to  do  at  the  present  time.  The  idea  of 
education  advanced  in  these  chapters  is  formally  summed  up 
in  the  idea  of  continuous  reconstruction  of  experience,  an  idea 
which  is  marked  off  from  education  as  preparation  for  a  remote 
future,  as  unfolding,  as  external  formation,  and  a^  recapitu- 
lation of  the  past. 


CHAPTER  Vn 

THE  DEMOCRATIC  CONCEPTION  IN  EDUCATION 

For  the  most  part,  save  incidentally,  we  have  hitherto  been 
concerned  with  education  as  it  may  exist  in  any  social  group. 
We  have  now  to  make  explicit  the  differences  in  the  spirit, 
material,  and  method  of  education  as  it  operates  in  different 
types  of  community  life.  To  say  that  education  is  a  social 
function,  securing  direction  and  development  in  the  immature 
through  their  participation  in  the  life  of  the  group  to  which 
they  belong,  is  to  say  in  effect  that  education  will  vary  with 
the  quality  of  life  which  prevails  in  a  group.  Particularly 
is  it  true  that  a  society  which  not  only  changes  but  which  has 
the  ideal  of  such  change  as  will  improve  it,  will  have  different 
standards  and  methods  of  education  from  one  which  aims 
simply  at  the  perpetuation  of  its  own  customs.  To  make  the 
general  ideas  set  forth  applicable  to  our  own  educational 
practice,  it  is,  therefore,  necessary  to  come  to  closer  quarters 
with  the  nature  of  present  social  life. 

1.  The  Implications  of  Human  Association.  —  Society  is 
one  word,  but  many  things.  Men  associate  together  in  all 
kinds  of  ways  and  for  all  kinds  of  purposes.  One  man  is 
concerned  in  a  multitude  of  diverse  groups,  in  which  his  associ- 
ates may  be  quite  different.  It  often  seems  as  if  they  had 
nothing  in  common  except  that  they  are  modes  of  associated 
life.  Within  every  larger  social  organization  there  are  nu- 
merous minor  groups :  not  only  political  subdivisions,  but 
industrial,  scientific,  religious,  associations.  There  are  pohtical 
parties  with  differing  aims,  social  sets,  cliques,  gangs,  corpo- 
rations, partnerships,  groups  bound  closely  together  by  ties 

04 


The  Democratic  Conception  in  Education         95 

of  blood,  and  so  in  endless  variety.  In  many  modern  states, 
and  in  some  ancient,  there  is  great  diversity  of  populations, 
of  varying  languages,  religions,  moral  codes,  and  traditions. 
From  this  standpoint,  many  a  minor  political  unit,  one  of 
our  large  cities,  for  example,  is  a  congeries  of  loosely  associated 
societies,  rather  than  an  inclusive  and  permeating  community 
of  action  and  thought.^ 

The  terms  society,  community,  are  thus  ambiguous.  They 
have  both  a  eulogistic  or  normative  sense,  and  a  descriptive 
sense ;  a  meaning  de  jure  and  a  meaning  de  facto.  In  social 
philosophy,  the  former  connotation  is  almost  always  upper- 
most. Society  is  conceived  as  one  by  its  very  nature.  The 
quaH ties  which  accompany  this  unity,  praiseworthy  community 
of  purpose  and  welfare,  loyalty  to  public  ends,  mutuality  of 
sympathy,  are  emphasized.  But  when  we  look  at  the  facts 
which  the  term  denotes  instead  of  confining  our  attention  to 
its  intrinsic  connotation,  we  find  not  unity,  but  a  plurality  of 
societies,  good  and  bad.  Men  banded  together  in  a  criminal 
conspiracy,  business  aggregations  that  prey  upon  the  public 
while  serving  it,  political  machines  held  together  by  the 
interest  of  plunder,  are  included.  If  it  is  said  that  such 
organizations  are  not  societies  because  they  do  not  meet  the 
ideal  requirements  of  the  notion  of  society,  the  answer,  in  part, 
is  that  the  conception  of  society  is  then  made  so  "  ideal "  as  to 
be  of  no  use,  having  no  reference  to  facts ;  and  in  part,  that 
each  of  these  organizations,  no  matter  how  opposed  to  the 
interests  of  other  groups,  has  something  of  the  praiseworthy 
qualities  of  "  Society "  which  hold  it  together.  There  is 
honor  among  thieves,  and  a  band  of  robbers  has  a  common 
interest  as  respects  its  members.  Gangs  are  marked  by 
fraternal  feeling,  and  narrow  cliques  by  intense  loyalty  to 
their  own  codes.  Family  life  may  be  marked  by  exclusive- 
ness,  suspicion,  and  jealousy  as  to  those  without,  and  yet  be 
a  model  of  amity  and  mutual  aid  within.     Any  education 

1  See  ante,  p.  34. 


96  Philosophy  of  Education 

given  by  a  group  tends  to  socialize  its  members,  but  the 
quality  and  value  of  the  socialization  depends  upon  the  habits 
and  aims  of  the  group. 

Hence,  once  more,  the  need  of  a  measure  for  the  worth  of 
any  given  mode  of  social  life.  In  seeking  this  measure,  we 
have  to  avoid  two  extremes.  We  cannot  set  up,  out  of  our 
heads,  something  we  regard  as  an  ideal  society.  We  must 
base  our  conception  upon  societies  which  actually  exist,  in 
cwder  to  have  any  assurance  that  our  ideal  is  a  practicable 
one.  But,  as  we  have  just  seen,  the  ideal  cannot  simply 
repeat  the  traits  which  are  actually  found.  The  problem  is 
to  extract  the  desirable  traits  of  forms  of  community  life 
which  actually  exist,  and  employ  them  to  criticize  undesirable 
features  and  suggest  improvement.  Now  in  any  social 
group  whatever,  even  in  a  gang  of  thieves,  we  find  some 
interest  held  in  common,  and  we  find  a  certain  amount  of 
interaction  and  cooperative  intercourse  with  other  groups. 
From  these  two  traits  we  derive  our  standard.  How  numerous 
and  varied  are  the  interests  which  are  consciously  shared? 
How  full  and  free  is  the  interplay  with  other  forms  of  associ- 
ation? If  we  apply  these  considerations  to,  say,  a  criminal 
band,  we  find  that  the  ties  which  consciously  hold  the  mem- 
bers together  are  few  in  number,  reducible  almost  to  a  common 
interest  in  plunder ;  and  that  they  are  of  such  a  nature  as  to 
isolate  the  group  from  other  groups  with  respect  to  give  and 
lake  of  the  values  of  fife.  Hence,  the  education  such  a  society 
gives  is  partial  and  distorted.  If  we  take,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  kind  of  family  life  which  illustrates  the  standard, 
we  find  that  there  are  material,  intellectual,  aesthetic  interests 
in  which  all  participate  and  that  the  progress  of  one  member 
has  worth  for  the  experience  of  other  members  —  it  is  readily 
communicable  —  and  that  the  family  is  not  an  isolated  whole, 
but  enters  intimately  into  relationships  with  business  groups, 
with  schools,  with  all  the  agencies  of  culture,  as  well  as  with 
other  similar  groups,  and  that  it  plays  a  due  part  in  the 


The  Democratic  Conception  in  EdtcccUion  97 

political  organization  and  in  return  receives  support  from 
it.  In  short,  there  are  many  interests  consciously  communi- 
cated and  shared ;  and  there  are  varied  and  free  points  of  con- 
tact with  other  modes  of  association. 

I.  Let  us  apply  the  first  element  in  this  criterion  to  a  des- 
potically governed  state.  It  is  not  true  there  is  no  common 
interest  in  such  an  organization  between  governed  and  gov- 
ernors. The  authorities  in  command  must  make  some 
appeal  to  the  native  activities  of  the  subjects,  must  call  some 
of  their  powers  into  play.  Talleyrand  said  that  a  government 
could  do  everything  with  bayonets  except  sit  on  them.  This 
cynical  declaration  is  at  least  a  recognition  that  the  bond  of 
union  is  not  merely  one  of  coercive  force.  It  may  be  said, 
however,  that  the  activities  appealed  to  are  themselves  un- 
worthy and  degrading  —  that  such  a  government  calls  into 
functioning  activity  simply  capacity  for  fear.  In  a  way,  this 
statement  is  true.  But  it  overlooks  the  fact  that  fear  need 
not  be  an  undesirable  factor  in  experience.  Caution,  cir- 
cumspection, prudence,  desire  to  foresee  future  events  so  as 
to  avert  what  is  harmful,  these  desirable  traits  are  as  much  a 
product  of  calling  the  impulse  of  fear  into  play  as  is  cowardice 
and  abject  submission.  The  real  difficulty  is  that  the  api>eal 
to  fear  is  isolated.  In  evoking  dread  and  hope  of  specific 
tangible  reward — say  comfort  and  ease  —  many  other  capaci- 
ties are  left  untouched.  Or  rather,  they  are  affected,  but  in 
such  a  way  as  to  pervert  them.  Instead  of  operating  on  their 
own  account  they  are  reduced  to  mere  servants  of  attaining 
pleasure  and  avoiding  pain. 

This  is  equivalent  to  saying  that  there  is  no  extensive 
number  of  common  interests ;  there  is  no  free  play  back  and 
forth  among  the  members  of  the  social  group.  Stimulation 
and  response  are  exceedingly  one  sided.  In  order  to  have  a 
large  number  of  values  in  common,  all  the  members  of  th« 
group  must  have  an  equable  opportunity  to  receive  and  ta 
take  from  others.  There  must  be  a  large  variety  of  shared 
a 


98  Philosophy  of  Education 

undertakings  and  experiences.  Otherwise,  the  influences 
which  educate  some  into  masters,  educate  others  into  slaves. 
And  the  experience  of  each  party  loses  in  meaning,  when  the 
free  interchange  of  varying  modes  of  Hfe-experience  is  ar- 
rested. A  separation  into  a  privileged  and  a  subject-class 
prevents  social  endosmosis.  The  evils  thereby  affecting 
the  superior  class  are  less  material  and  less  perceptible,  but 
equally  real.  Their  culture  tends  to  be  sterUe,  to  be  turned 
back  to  feed  on  itself ;  their  art  becomes  a  showy  display  and 
artificial;  their  wealth  luxurious;  their  knowledge  over- 
specialized  ;   their  manners  fastidious  rather  than  humane. 

Lack  of  the  free  and  equitable  intercourse  which  springs 
from  a  variety  of  shared  interests  makes  intellectual  stimu- 
lation unbalanced.  Diversity  of  stimulation  means  novelty, 
and  novelty  means  challenge  to  thought.  The  more  activity 
is  restricted  to  a  few  definite  lines  —  as  it  is  when  there  are 
rigid  class  lines  preventing  adequate  interplay  of  experiences 
—  the  more  action  tends  to  become  routine  on  the  part 
of  the  class  at  a  disadvantage,  and  capricious,  aimless,  and 
explosive  on  the  part  of  the  class  having  the  materially  fortu- 
nate position.  Plato  defined  a  slave  as  one  who  accepts  from 
another  the  purposes  which  control  his  conduct.  This  con- 
dition obtains  even  where  there  is  no  slavery  in  the  legal  sense. 
It  is  found  wherever  men  are  engaged  in  activity  which  is 
socially  serviceable,  but  whose  service  they  do  not  understand 
and  have  no  personal  interest  in.  Much  is  said  about  scien- 
tific management  of  work.  It  is  a  narrow  view  which  restricts 
the  science  which  secures  efficiency  of  operation  to  movements 
of  the  muscles.  The  chief  opportunity  for  science  is  the 
discovery  of  the  relations  of  a  man  to  his  work  —  including 
his  relations  to  others  who  take  part  —  which  will  enlist  his 
intelligent  interest  in  what  he  is  doing.  Efficiency  in  produc- 
tion often  demands  division  of  labor.  But  it  is  reduced  to  a 
mechanical  routine  unless  workers  see  the  technical,  intellectual, 
and  social  relationships  involved  in  what  they  do,  and  engage 


The  Democratic  Conception  in  Education  gg 

in  their  work  because  of  the  motivation  furnished  by  such 
perceptions.  The  tendency  to  reduce  such  things  as  efficiency 
of  activity  and  scientific  management  to  purely  technical 
externals  is  evidence  of  the  one-sided  stimulation  of  thought 
given  to  those  in  control  of  industry  —  those  who  supply 
its  aims.  Because  of  their  lack  of  all-round  and  well- 
balanced  social  interest,  there  is  not  sufficient  stimulus  for 
attention  to  the  human  factors  and  relationships  in  industry. 
Intelligence  is  narrowed  to  the  factors  concerned  with  technical 
production  and  marketing  of  goods.  No  doubt,  a  very  acute 
and  intense  intelligence  in  these  narrow  lines  can  be  developed, 
but  the  failure  to  take  into  account  the  significant  social 
factors  means  none  the  less  an  absence  of  mind,  and  a  cor- 
responding distortion  of  emotional  fife. 

II.  This  illustration  (whose  point  is  to  be  extended  to  all 
associations  lacking  reciprocity  of  interest)  brings  us  to  our 
second  point.  The  isolation  and  exclusiveness  of  a  gang  or 
clique  brings  its  antisocial  spirit  into  relief.  But  this  same 
spirit  is  found  wherever  one  group  has  interests  '  of  its  own ' 
which  shut  it  out  from  full  interaction  with  other  groups,  so 
that  its  prevailing  purpose  is  the  protection  of  what  it  has  got, 
instead  of  reorganization  and  progress  through  wider  re- 
lationships. It  marks  nations  in  their  isolation  from  one 
another;  families  which  seclude  their  domestic  concerns  as 
if  they  had  no  connection  with  a  larger  Hfe;  schools  when 
separated  from  the  interest  of  home  and  community;  the 
divisions  of  rich  and  poor;  learned  and  unlearned.  The 
essential  point  is  that  isolation  makes  for  rigidity  and  formal 
institutionalizing  of  life,  for  static  and  selfish  ideals  within 
the  group.  That  savage  tribes  regard  aHens  and  enemies  as 
synonymous  is  not  accidental.  It  springs  from  the  fact  that 
they  have  identified  their  experience  with  rigid  adherence  to 
their  past  customs.  On  such  a  basis  it  is  wholly  logical  to 
fear  intercourse  with  others,  for  such  contact  might  dissolve 
custom.     It  would  certainly  occasion  reconstruction.     It  is  a 


roo  Philosophy  of  Education 

commonplace  that  an  alert  and  expanding  mental  life  depends 
upon  an  enlarging  range  of  contact  with  the  physical  envi- 
ronment. But  the  principle  applies  even  more  significantly 
to  the  field  where  we  are  apt  to  ignore  it  —  the  sphere  of 
social  contacts. 

Every  expansive  era  in  the  history  of  mankind  has  coin- 
cided with  the  operation  of  factors  which  have  tended  to 
eliminate  distance  between  peoples  and  classes  previously 
hemmed  off  from  one  another,  fiven  the  alleged  benefits  of 
war,  so  far  as  more  than  alleged,  spring  from  the  fact  that 
conflict  of  peoples  at  least  enforces  intercourse  between 
them  and  thus  accidentally  enables  them  to  learn  from  one 
another,  and  thereby  to  expand  their  horizons.  Travel,  eco- 
nomic and  commercial  tendencies,  have  at  present  gone  far  ti 
break  down  external  barriers;  to  bring  peoples  and  classes 
into  closer  and  more  perceptible  connection  with  one  another. 
It  remains  for  the  most  part  to  secure  the  intellectual 
and  emotional  significance  of  this  physical  annihilation  of 
space. 

2.  The  Democratic  Ideal.  —  The  two  elements  in  our 
criterion  both  point  to  democracy.  The  first  signifies  not 
only  more  numerous  and  more  varied  points  of  shared  com- 
mon interest,  but  greater  reliance  upon  the  recognition  of 
mutual  interests  as  a  factor  in  social  control.  The  second 
means  not  only  freer  interaction  between  social  groups  (once 
isolated  so  far  as  intention  could  keep  up  a  separation)  but 
change  in  social  habit — its  continuous  readjustment  through 
meeting  the  new  situations  produced  by  varied  intercourse. 
And  these  two  traits  are  precisely  what  characterize  the 
democratically  constituted  society. 

Upon  the  educational  side,  we  note  first  that  the  realization 
of  a  form  of  social  life  in  which  interests  are  mutually  inter- 
penetrating, and  where  progress,  or  readjustment,  is  an  im- 
portant consideration,  makes  a  democratic  community  more 
interested  than  other  communities  have  cause  to  be  in  deliber- 


The  Democratic  Conception  in  Education         loi 

ate  and  systematic  education.  The  devotion  of  democracy 
to  education  is  a  familiar  fact.  The  superficial  explanation 
is  that  a  government  resting  upon  popular  suffrage  cannot 
be  successful  unless  those  who  elect  and  who  obey  their 
governors  are  educated.  Since  a  democratic  society  repudi- 
ates the  principle  of  external  authority,  it  must  find  a  substi- 
tute in  voluntary  disposition  and  interest ;  these  can  be  cre- 
ated only  by  education.  But  there  is  a  deeper  explanation. 
A  democracy  is  more  than  a  form  of  government ;  it  is  pri- 
marily a  mode  of  associated  living,  of  conjoint  communicated 
experience.  The  extension  in  space  of  the  number  of  indi- 
viduals who  participate  in  an  interest  so  that  each  has  to  refer 
his  own  action  to  that  of  others,  and  to  consider  the  action  of 
others  to  give  point  and  direction  to  his  own,  is  equivalent  to 
the  breaking  down  of  those  barriers  of  class,  race,  and  national 
territory  which  kept  men  from  perceiving  the  full  import  of 
their  activity.  These  more  numerous  and  more  varied  points 
of  contact  denote  a  greater  diversity  of  stimuli  to  which  an 
individual  has  to  respond ;  they  consequently  put  a  premium 
on  variation  in  his  action.  They  secure  a  liberation  of  powers 
which  remain  suppressed  as  long  as  the  incitations  to  action 
are  partial,  as  they  must  be  in  a  group  which  in  its  ex- 
clusiveness  shuts  out  many  interests. 

The  widening  of  the  area  of  shared  concerns,  and  the 
liberation  of  a  greater  diversity  of  personal  capacities  which 
characterize  a  democracy,  are  not  of  course  the  product  of 
deliberation  and  conscious  effort.  On  the  contrary,  they  were 
caused  by  the  development  of  modes  of  manufacture  and 
commerce,  travel,  migration,  and  intercommunication  which 
flowed  from  the  command  of  science  over  natural  energy. 
But  after  greater  individualization  on  one  hand,  and  a  broader 
community  of  interest  on  the  other  have  come  into  existence, 
it  is  a  matter  of  deHberate  effort  to  sustain  and  extend  them. 
Obviously  a  society  to  which  stratification  into  separate 
classes  would  be  fatal,  must  see  to  it  that  intellectual  oppor- 


I02  Philosophy  of  Education 

tunities  are  accessible  to  all  on  equable  and  easy  terms.  A 
society  marked  off  into  classes  need  be  specially  attentive 
only  to  the  education  of  its  ruling  elements.  A  society  which 
is  mobile,  which  is  full  of  channels  for  the  distribution  of  a 
change  occurring  anywhere,  must  see  to  it  that  its  members 
are  educated  to  personal  initiative  and  adaptability.  Other- 
wise, they  will  be  overwhelmed  by  the  changes  in  which  they 
are  caught  and  whose  significance  or  connections  they  do 
not  perceive.  The  result  will  be  a  confusion  in  which  a  few 
will  appropriate  to  themselves  the  results  of  the  blind  and 
externally  directed  activities  of  others. 

3.  The  Platonic  Educational  Philosophy.  —  Subsequent 
chapters  will  be  devoted  to  making  exphcit  the  implications 
of  the  democratic  ideas  in  education.  In  the  remaining 
portions  of  this  chapter,  we  shall  consider  the  educational 
theories  which  have  been  evolved  in  three  epochs  when  the 
social  import  of  education  was  especially  conspicuous.  The 
first  one  to  be  considered  is  that  of  Plato.  No  one  could 
better  express  than  did  he  the  fact  that  a  society  is  stably 
organized  when  each  individual  is  doing  that  for  which  he 
has  aptitude  by  nature  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  useful  to  others 
(or  to  contribute  to  the  whole  to  which  he  belongs) ;  and  that 
it  is  the  business  of  education  to  discover  these  aptitudes 
and  progressively  to  train  them  for  social  use.  Much  which 
has  been  said  so  far  is  borrowed  from  what  Plato  first  con- 
sciously taught  the  world.  But  conditions  which  he  could 
not  intellectually  control  led  him  to  restrict  these  ideas  in 
their  application.  He  never  got  any  conception  of  the 
indefinite  pluraUty  of  activities  which  may  characterize  an 
individual  and  a  social  group,  and  consequently  Umited  his 
view  to  a  Umited  number  of  classes  of  capacities  and  of  social 
arrangements. 

Plato's  starting  point  is  that  the  organization  of  society 
depends  ultimately  upon  knowledge  of  the  end  of  existence. 
If  we  do  not  know  its  end,  we  shall  be  at  the  mercy  of  accident 


The  Democratic  Conception  in  Education        103 

and  caprice.  Unless  we  know  the  end,  the  good,  we  shall 
have  no  criterion  for  rationally  deciding  what  the  possibilities 
are  which  should  be  promoted,  nor  how  social  arrangments 
are  to  be  ordered.  We  shall  have  no  conception  of  the  proper 
limits  and  distribution  of  activities — what  he  called  justice  — 
as  a  trait  of  both  individual  and  social  organization.  But 
how  is  the  knowledge  of  the  final  and  permanent  good  to  be 
achieved?  In  dealing  with  this  question  we  come  upon  the 
seemingly  insuperable  obstacle  that  such  knowledge  is  not 
possible  save  in  a  just  and  harmonious  social  order.  Every- 
where else  the  mind  is  distracted  and  misled  by  false  valuations 
and  false  perspectives.  A  disorganized  and  factional  society 
sets  up  a  number  of  different  models  and  standards.  Under 
such  conditions  it  is  impossible  for  the  individual  to  attain 
consistency  of  mind.  Only  a  complete  whole  is  fully  self- 
consistent.  A  society  which  rests  upon  the  supremacy  of 
some  factor  over  another  irrespective  of  its  rational  or  pro- 
portionate claims,  inevitably  leads  thought  astray.  It  puts  a 
premium  on  certain  things  and  slurs  over  others,  and  creates 
a  mind  whose  seeming  unity  is  forced  and  distorted.  Ed- 
ucation proceeds  ultimately  from  the  patterns  furnished  by 
institutions,  customs,  and  laws.  Only  in  a  just  state  will 
these  be  such  as  to  give  the  right  education ;  and  only  those 
who  have  rightly  trained  minds  will  be  able  to  recognize  the 
end,  and  ordering  principle  of  things.  We  seem  to  be  caught 
in  a  hopeless  circle.  However,  Plato  suggested  a  way  out. 
A  few  men,  philosophers  or  lovers  of  wisdom  —  or  truth  — 
may  by  study  learn  at  least  in  outline  the  proper  patterns  of 
true  existence.  If  a  powerful  ruler  should  form  a  state  after 
these  patterns,  then  its  regulations  could  be  preserved.  An 
education  could  be  given  which  would  sift  individuals,  dis- 
covering what  they  were  good  for,  and  supplying  a  method  of 
assigning  each  to  the  work  in  Ufe  for  which  his  nature  fits 
him.  Each  doing  his  own  part,  and  never  transgressing,  the 
order  and  unity  of  the  whole  would  be  maintained. 


I04  Philosophy  of  Education 

It  would  be  impossible  to  find  in  any  scheme  of  philosophic 
thought  a  more  adequate  recognition  on  one  hand  of  the 
educational  significance  of  social  arrangements  and,  on  the 
other,  of  the  dependence  of  those  arrangements  upon  the 
means  used  to  educate  the  young.  It  would  be  impossible 
to  find  a  deeper  sense  of  the  function  of  education  in  discover- 
ing and  developing  personal  capacities,  and  training  them  so 
that  they  would  connect  with  the  activities  of  others.  Yet 
the  society  in  which  the  theory  was  propounded  was  so  un- 
democratic that  Plato  could  not  work  out  a  solution  for  the 
problem  whose  terms  he  clearly  saw. 

While  he  affirmed  with  emphasis  that  the  place  of  the 
individual  in  society  should  not  be  determined  by  birth  or 
wealth  or  any  conventional  status,  but  by  his  own  nature  as 
discovered  in  the  process  of  education,  he  had  no  perception 
of  the  uniqueness  of  individuals.  For  him  they  fall  by 
nature  into  classes,  and  into  a  very  small  number  of  classes 
at  that.  Consequently  the  testing  and  sifting  function  of  ed- 
ucation only  shows  to  which  one  of  three  classes  an  individual 
belongs.  There  being  no  recognition  that  each  individual 
constitutes  his  own  class,  there  could  be  no  recognition  of 
the  infinite  diversity  of  active  tendencies  and  combinations 
of  tendencies  of  which  an  individual  is  capable.  There  were 
only  three  types  of  faculties  or  powers  in  the  individual's 
constitution.  Hence  education  would  soon  reach  a  static 
limit  in  each  class,  for  only  diversity  makes  change  and 
progress. 

In  some  individuals,  appetites  naturally  dominate;  they 
are  assigned  to  the  laboring  and  trading  class,  which  expresses 
and  supplies  human  wants.  Others  reveal,  upon  education, 
that  over  and  above  appetites,  they  have  a  generous,  out- 
going, assertively  courageous  disposition.  They  become  the 
citizen-subjects  of  the  state;  its  defenders  in  war;  its  in- 
ternal guardians  in  peace.  But  their  limit  is  fixed  by  their 
lack  of  reason,  which  is  a  capacity  to  grasp  the  universal. 


The  Democratic  Conception  in  Education         105 

Those  who  possess  this  are  capable  of  the  highest  kind  of 
education,  and  become  in  time  the  legislators  of  the  state  — 
for  laws  are  the  universals  which  control  the  particulars  of 
experience.  Thus  it  is  not  true  that  in  intent,  Plato  sub- 
ordinated the  individual  to  the  social  whole.  But  it  is  true 
that  lacking  the  perception  of  the  uniqueness  of  every  indi' 
vidual,  his  incommensurability  with  others,  and  consequently 
not  recognizing  that  a  society  might  change  and  yet  be  stable, 
his  doctrine  of  Hmited  powers  and  classes  came  in  net  effect 
to  the  idea  of  the  subordination  of  individuality. 

We  cannot  better  Plato's  conviction  that  an  individual  is 
happy  and  society  well  organized  when  each  individual  engages 
in  those  activities  for  which  he  has  a  natural  equipment,  nor 
his  conviction  that  it  is  the  primary  ofl&ce  of  education  to 
discover  this  equipment  to  its  possessor  and  train  him  for  its 
effective  use.  But  progress  in  knowledge  has  made  us  aware 
of  the  superficiality  of  Plato's  lumping  of  individuals  and  their 
original  powers  into  a  few  sharply  marked-off  classes ;  it  has 
taught  us  that  original  capacities  are  indefinitely  numerous  and 
variable.  It  is  but  the  other  side  of  this  fact  to  say  that  in 
the  degree  in  which  society  has  become  democratic,  social 
organization  means  utilization  of  the  specific  and  variable 
qualities  of  individuals,  not  stratification  by  classes.  Al- 
though his  educational  philosophy  was  revolutionary,  it  was 
none  the  less  in  bondage  to  static  ideals.  He  thought  that 
change  or  alteration  was  evidence  of  lawless  flux;  that  true 
reality  was  unchangeable.  Hence  while  he  would  radically 
change  the  existing  state  of  society,  his  aim  was  to  construct 
a  state  in  which  change  would  subsequently  have  no  place. 
The  final  end  of  life  is  fixed ;  given  a  state  framed  with  this 
end  in  view,  not  even  minor  details  are  to  be  altered.  Though 
they  might  not  be  inherently  important,  yet  if  permitted  they 
would  inure  the  minds  of  men  to  the  idea  of  change,  and 
hence  be  dissolving  and  anarchic.  The  breakdown  of  his 
philosophy  is  made  apparent  in  the  fact  that  he  could  not 


io6  Philosophy  of  Education 

trust  to  gradual  improvements  in  education  to  bring  about  a 
better  society  which  should  then  improve  education,  and  so 
on  indefinitely.  Correct  education  could  not  come  into 
existence  until  an  ideal  state  existed,  and  after  that  education 
would  be  devoted  simply  to  its  conservation.  For  the  exist- 
ence of  this  state  he  was  obliged  to  trust  to  some  happy 
accident  by  which  philosophic  wisdom  should  happen  to 
coincide  with  possession  of  ruling  power  in  the  state. 

4.  The  "  Individualistic  "  Ideal  of  the  Eighteenth  Century. 
—  In  the  eighteenth-century  philosophy  we  find  ourselves  in 
a  very  different  circle  of  ideas.  "  Nature  "  still  means  some- 
thing antithetical  to  existing  social  organization;  Plato  ex- 
ercised a  great  influence  upon  Rousseau.  But  the  voice  of 
nature  now  speaks  for  the  diversity  of  individual  talent  and 
for  the  need  of  free  development  of  individuality  in  all  its 
variety.  Education  in  accord  with  nature  furnishes  the  goal 
and  the  method  of  instruction  and  discipHne.  Moreover,  the 
native  or  original  endowment  was  conceived,  in  extreme 
cases,  as  nonsocial  or  even  as  antisocial.  Social  arrange- 
ments were  thought  of  as  mere  external  expedients  by  which 
these  nonsocial  individuals  might  secure  a  greater  amoimt  of 
private  happiness  for  themselves. 

Nevertheless,  these  statements  convey  only  an  inadequate 
idea  of  the  true  significance  of  the  movement.  In  reality  its 
chief  interest  was  in  progress  and  in  social  progress.  The 
seeming  antisocial  philosophy  was  a  somewhat  transparent 
mask  for  an  impetus  toward  a  wider  and  freer  society  — 
towards  cosmopolitanism.  The  positive  ideal  was  humanity. 
In  membership  in  humanity,  as  distinct  from  a  state,  man's 
capacities  would  be  hberated;  while  in  existing  political 
organizations  his  powers  were  hampered  and  distorted  to 
meet  the  requirements  and  selfish  interests  of  the  rulers  of 
the  state.  The  doctrine  of  extreme  individualism  was  but 
the  counterpart,  the  obverse,  of  ideals  of  the  indefinite  per- 
fectibility of  man  and  of  a  social  organization  having  a  scope 


The  Democratic  Conception  in  Education         107 

as  wide  as  humanity.  The  emancipated  individual  was  to 
become  the  organ  and  agent  of  a  comprehensive  and  pro- 
gressive society. 

The  heralds  of  this  gospel  were  acutely  conscious  of  the  evils 
of  the  social  estate  in  which  they  found  themselves.  They 
attributed  these  evils  to  the  Hmitations  imposed  upon  the  free 
powers  of  man.  Such  limitation  was  both  distorting  and 
corrupting.  Their  impassioned  devotion  to  emancipation  of 
life  from  external  restrictions  which  operated  to  the  exclusive 
advantage  of  the  class  to  whom  a  past  feudal  system  con- 
signed power,  found  intellectual  formulation  in  a  worship 
of  nature.  To  give  "  nature  "  full  swing  was  to  replace  an 
artificial,  corrupt,  and  inequitable  social  order  by  a  new  and 
better  kingdom  of  humanity.  Unrestrained  faith  in  Nature 
as  both  a  model  and  a  working  power  was  strengthened  by  the 
advances  of  natural  science.  Inquiry  freed  from  prejudice 
and  artificial  restraints  of  church  and  state  had  revealed  that 
the  world  is  a  scene  of  law.  The  Newtonian  solar  system, 
which  expressed  the  reign  of  natural  law,  was  a  scene  of  wonder- 
ful harmony,  where  every  force  balanced  with  every  other. 
Natural  law  would  accomplish  the  same  result  in  human  re- 
lations, if  men  would  only  get  rid  of  the  artificial  man-imposed 
coercive  restrictions. 

Education  in  accord  with  nature  was  thought  to  be  the 
first  step  in  insuring  this  more  social  society.  It  was  plainly 
seen  that  economic  and  poHtical  limitations  were  ultimately 
dependent  upon  Hmitations  of  thought  and  feeling.  The 
first  step  in  freeing  men  from  external  chains  was  to  emanci- 
pate them  from  the  internal  chains  of  false  beliefs  and  ideals. 
What  was  called  social  Hfe,  existing  institutions,  were  too  false 
and  corrupt  to  be  intrusted  with  this  work.  How  could  it  be 
expected  to  undertake  it  when  the  undertaking  meant  its 
own  destruction  ?  "  Nature  "  must  then  be  the  power  to 
which  the  enterprise  was  to  be  left.  Even  the  extreme  sen- 
sationahstic  theory  of  knowledge  which  was  current  derived 


io8  Philosophy  of  Education 

itself  from  this  conception.  To  insist  that  mind  is  originally 
passive  and  empty  was  one  way  of  glorifying  the  possibilities 
of  education.  If  the  mind  was  a  wax  tablet  to  be  written 
upon  by  objects,  there  were  no  limits  to  the  possibility  of 
education  by  means  of  the  natural  environment.  And  since 
the  natural  world  of  objects  is  a  scene  of  harmonious  "  truth," 
this  education  would  infallibly  produce  minds  filled  with  the 
truth. 

5.  Education  as  National  and  as  Social.  —  As  soon  as  the 
first  enthusiasm  for  freedom  waned,  the  weakness  of  the 
theory  upon  the  constructive  side  became  obvious.  Merely 
to  leave  everything  to  nature  was,  after  all,  but  to  negate  the 
very  idea  of  education ;  it  was  to  trust  to  the  accidents  of 
circumstance.  Not  only  was  some  method  required  but  also 
some  positive  organ,  some  administrative  agency  for  carr3dng 
on  the  process  of  instruction.  The  "  complete  and  harmoni- 
ous development  of  all  powers,"  having  as  its  social  counter- 
part an  enhghtenedand  progressive  humanity,  required  definite 
organization  for  its  realization.  Private  individuals  here  and 
there  could  proclaim  the  gospel;  they  could  not  execute  the 
work.  A  Pestalozzi  could  try  experiments  and  exhort  phil- 
anthropically  inclined  persons  having  wealth  and  power  to 
follow  his  example.  But  even  Pestalozzi  saw  that  any 
effective  pursuit  of  the  new  educational  ideal  required  the 
support  of  the  state.  The  reaHzation  of  the  new  education 
destined  to  produce  a  new  society  was,  after  all,  dependent 
upon  the  activities  of  existing  states.  The  movement  for  the 
democratic  idea  inevitably  became  a  movement  for  publicly 
conducted  and  administered  schools. 

So  far  as  Europe  was  concerned,  the  historic  situation 
identified  the  movement  for  a  state-supported  education  with 
the  nationalistic  movement  in  political  life  —  a  fact  of  in- 
calculable significance  for  subsequent  movements.  Under  the 
influence  of  German  thought  in  particular,  education  became 
a  civic  function  and  the  dvic  function  was  identified  with  the 


The  Democratic  Conception  in  Education         lug 

realization  of  the  ideal  of  the  national  state.  Tht  "  state  " 
was  substituted  for  humanity;  cosmopolitanism  gave  way 
to  nationaKsm.  To  form  the  citizen,  not  tlie  "man,"  became 
the  aim  of  education.^  The  historic  situation  to  which 
reference  is  made  is  the  aftci -effects  of  the  Napoleonic  con- 
quests, especially  in  Germany.  The  German  states  felt 
(and  subsequent  events  demonstrate  the  correctness  of  the 
belief)  that  systematic  attention  to  education  was  the  best 
means  of  recovering  and  maintaining  their  political  integrity 
and  power.  Externally  they  were  weak  and  divided.  Under 
the  leadership  of  Prussian  statesmen  they  made  this  condition 
a  stimulus  to  the  development  of  an  extensive  and  thoroughly 
grounded  system  of  pubHc  education. 

This  change  in  practice  necessarily  brought  about  a  change 
in  theory.  The  individuahstic  theory  receded  into  the  back- 
ground. The  state  furnished  not  only  the  instrumentalities 
of  public  education  but  also  its  goal.  When  the  actual 
practice  was  such  that  the  school  system,  from  the  elementary 
grades  through  the  university  faculties,  supplied  the  patriotic 
citizen  and  soldier  and  the  future  state  official  and  adminis- 
trator and  furnished  the  means  for  mihtary,  industrial,  and 
political  defense  and  expansion,  it  was  impossible  for  theory 
not  to  emphasize  the  aim  of  social  efficiency.  And  with  the 
immense  importance  attached  to  the  nationalistic  state, 
surrounded  by  other  competing  and  more  or  less  hostile 
states,  it  was  equally  impossible  to  interpret  social  efficiency 
in  terms  of  a  vague  cosmopolitan  humanitarianism.  Since 
the  maintenance  of  a  particular  national  sovereignty  required 
subordination  of  individuals  to  the  superior  interests  of  the 

'  There  is  a  much  neglected  strain  in  Rousseau  tending  intellectually  in  this 
direction.  He  opposed  the  existing  state  of  affairs  on  the  ground  that  it  formed 
neither  the  citizen  nor  the  man.  Under  existing  conditions,  he  preferred  to  try 
for  the  latter  rather  than  for  the  former.  But  there  are  many  sayings  of  his 
which  point  to  the  formation  of  the  citizen  as  ideally  the  higher,  and  which  in- 
dicate that  his  own  endeavor,  as  embodied  in  the  "  Emile,"  was  simply  the  best 
makeshift  the  corruption  of  the  times  permitted  him  to  sketch. 


no  Philosophy  of  Education 

state  both  in  military  defense  and  in  struggles  for  international 
supremacy  in  commerce,  social  efficiency  was  understood  to 
imply  a  like  subordination.  The  educational  process  was 
taken  to  be  one  of  disciphnary  training  rather  than  of  personal 
development.  Since,  however,  the  ideal  of  culture  as  complete 
development  of  personality  persisted,  educational  philosophy 
attempted  a  reconciliation  of  the  two  ideas.  The  reconcili- 
ation took  the  form  of  the  conception  of  the  *  organic ' 
character  of  the  state.  The  individual  in  his  isolation  is 
nothing ;  only  in  and  through  an  absorption  of  the  aims  and 
meaning  of  organized  institutions  does  he  attain  true  person- 
ahty.  What  appears  to  be  his  subordination  to  political 
authority  and  the  demand  for  sacrifice  of  himself  to  the  com- 
mands of  his  superiors  is  in  reality  but  making  his  own  the 
objective  reason  manifested  in  the  state  —  the  only  way  in 
which  he  can  become  truly  rational.  The  notion  of  develop- 
ment which  we  have  seen  to  be  characteristic  of  institutional 
idealism  (as  in  the  Hegelian  philosophy)  was  just  such  a  de- 
liberate effort  to  combine  the  two  ideas  of  complete  realization 
of  personality  and  thoroughgoing  *  disciplinary '  subordi- 
nation to  existing  institutions. 

The  extent  of  the  transformation  of  educational  philosophy 
which  occurred  in  Germany  in  the  generation  occupied  by  the 
struggle  against  Napoleon  for  national  independence,  may  be 
gathered  from  Kant,  who  well  expresses  the  earlier  individual- 
cosmopolitan  ideal.  In  his  treatise  on  Pedagogics,  consisting 
of  lectures  given  in  the  later  years  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
he  defines  education  as  the  process  by  which  man  becomes 
man.  Mankind  begins  its  history  submerged  in  nature  — 
not  as  Man  who  is  a  creature  of  reason,  while  nature  furnishes 
only  instinct  and  appetite.  Nature  offers  simply  the  germs 
which  education  is  to  develop  and  perfect.  The  peculiarity 
of  truly  human  life  is  that  man  has  to  create  himself  by Jiis 
own  voluntary  efforts ;  he  has  to  make  himself  a  truly  moral, 
rational,  and  free  being.    This  creative  effort  is  carried  on  by 


The  Democratic  Conception  in  Education         m 

the  educational  activities  of  slow  generations.  Its  accelera- 
tion depends  upon  men  consciously  striving  to  educate  theii 
successors  not  for  the  existing  state  of  affairs  but  so  as  to  make 
possible  a  future  better  humanity.  But  there  is  the  great 
difficulty.  Each  generation  is  inclinedjto  educate  its  young  so 
as  to  get  along  m  the  present  world  instead  of  with  a  view  tCL, 
the  proper  end  of  educatiofT:  the  promotion  of  the  best  pos- 
sible realization  of  humanity  as  humanity.  Parents  educate 
their  children  so  that  they  may  get  on ;  princes  educate  their 
subjects  as  instruments  of  their  own  purposes. 

Who,  then,  shall  conduct  education  so  that  humanity 
may  improve  ?  We  must  depend  upon  the  efforts  of  enlight- 
ened men  in  their  private  capacity.  "  All  culture  begins 
with  private  men  and  spreads  outward  from  them.  Simply 
through  the  efforts  of  persons  of  enlarged  inclinations,  who 
are  capable  of  grasping  the  ideal  of  a  future  better  condition, 
is  the  gradual  approximation  of  human  nature  to  its  end 
possible.  .  .  .  Rulers  are  simply  interested  in  such  training 
as  will  make  their  subjects  better  tools  for  their  own  inten- 
tions." Even  the  subsidy  by  rulers  of  privately  conducted 
schools  must  be  carefully  safeguarded.  For  the  rulers'  interest 
in  the  welfare  of  their  own  nation  instead  of  in  what  is  best 
for  humanity,  will  make  them,  if  they  give  money  for  the 
xhools,  wish  to  draw  their  plans.  We  have  in  this  view 
an  express  statement  of  the  points  characteristic  of  the  eight- 
eenth century  individualistic  cosmopolitanism.  The  full 
development  of  private  personaUty  is  identified  with  the 
aims  of  humanity  as  a  whole  and  with  the  idea  of  progress. 
In  addition  we  have  an  explicit  fear  of  the  hampering  in- 
fluence of  a  state-conducted  and  state-regulated  education 
upon  the  attainment  of  these  ideas.  But  in  less  than  two 
decades  after  this  time,  Kant's  philosophic  successors,  Fichte 
and  Hegel,  elaborated  the  idea  that  the  chief  function  of  the 
state  is  educational ;  that  in  particular  the  regeneration  of  Ger- 
many is  to  be  accompUshed  by  an  education  carried  on  in  the 


112  Philosophy  of  Education 

interests  of  the  state,  and  that  the  private  individual  is  of 
necessity  an  egoistic,  irrational  being,  enslaved  to  his  appetites 
and  to  circumstances  unless  he  submits  voluntarily  to  the 
educative  discipline  of  state  institutions  and  laws.  In  this 
spirit,  Germany  was  the  first  country  to  undertake  a  public, 
universal,  and  compulsory  system  of  education  extending 
from  the  primary  school  through  the  university,  and  to  submit 
to  jealous  state  regulation  and  supervision  all  private  educa- 
tional enterprises. 

Two  results  should  stand  out  from  this  brief  historical 
survey.  The  first  is  that  such  terms  as  the  individual  and 
the  social  conceptions  of  education  are  quite  meaningless 
taken  at  large,  or  apart  from  their  context.  Plato  had  the 
ideal  of  an  education  which  should  equate  individual  reali- 
zation and  social  coherency  and  stabiHty.  His  situation 
forced  his  ideal  into  the  notion  of  a  society  organized  in 
stratified  classes,  losing  the  individual  in  the  class.  The 
eighteenth  century  educational  philosophy  was  highly  in- 
dividualistic in  form,  but  this  form  was  inspired  by  a  noble 
and  generous  social  ideal :  that  of  a  society  organized  to 
include  humanity,  and  providing  for  the  indefinite  perfecti- 
bility of  mankind.  The  ideahstic  philosophy  of  Germany 
in  the  early  nineteenth  century  endeavored  again  to  equate 
the  ideals  of  a  free  and  complete  development  of  cultured 
personality  with  social  discipHne  and  poHtical  subordination. 
It  made  the  national  state  an  intermediary  between  the 
reaHzation  of  private  personality  on  one  side  and  of  humanity 
on  the  other.  Consequently,  it  is  equally  possible  to  state 
its  animating  principle  with  equal  truth  either  in  the  classic 
terms  of  "  harmonious  development  of  all  the  powers  of 
personality  "  or  in  the  more  recent  terminology  of  "  social 
efiiciency."  All  this  reenforces  the  statement  which  opens 
this  chapter :  The  conception  of  education  as  a  social  process 
and  function  has  no  definite  meaning  until  we  define  the  kind 
of  society  we  have  in  mind. 


'The  Democratic  Conception  in  Education         113 

These  considerations  pave  the  way  for  our  second  con- 
clusion. One  of  the  fundamental  problems  of  education  in 
and  for  a  democratic  society  is  set  by  the  conflict  of  a  national- 
istic and  a  wider  social  aim.  The  earher  cosmopolitan  and 
*  humanitarian '  conception  suffered  both  from  vagueness 
and  from  lack  of  definite  organs  of  execution  and  agencies  of 
administration.  In  Europe,  in  the  Continental  states  par- 
ticularly, the  new  idea  of  the  imp>ortance  of  education  for 
himian  welfare  and  progress  was  captured  by  national  inter- 
ests and  harnessed  to  do  a  work  whose  social  aim  was  definitely 
narrow  and  exclusive.  The  social  aim  of  education  and  its 
national  aim  were  identified,  and  the  result  was  a  marked 
obscuring  of  the  meaning  of  a  social  aim. 

This  confusion  corresponds  to  the  existing  situation  of 
human  intercourse.  On  the  one  hand,  science,  commerce,  and 
art  transcend  national  boundaries.  They  are  largely  inter- 
national in  quality  and  method.  They  involve  interdepend- 
encies  and  cooperation  among  the  peoples  inhabiting  different 
countries.  At  the  same  time,  the  idea  of  national  sovereignty 
has  never  been  as  accentuated  in  politics  as  it  is  at  the  present 
time.  Each  nation  lives  in  a  state  of  suppressed  hostility  and 
incipient  war  with  its  neighbors.  Each  is  supposed  to  be 
the  supreme  judge  of  its  own  interests,  and  it  is  assumed  as 
matter  of  course  that  each  has  interests  which  are  exclusively 
its  own.  To  question  this  is  to  question  the  very  idea  of 
national  sovereignty  which  is  assumed  to  be  basic  to  political 
practice  and  political  science.  This  contradiction  (for  it  is 
nothing  less)  between  the  wider  sphere  of  associated  and 
mutually  helpful  social  life  and  the  narrower  sphere  of  exclusive 
and  hence  potentially  hostile  pursuits  and  purposes,  exacts 
of  educational  theory  a  clearer  conception  of  the  meaning  of 
'  social '  as  a  function  and  test  of  education  than  has  yet  been 
attained. 

Is  it  possible  for  an  educational  system  to  be  conducted  by 
i  national  state  and  yet  the  full  social  ends  of  the  educative 


114  Philosophy  of  Education 

process  not  be  restricted,  constrained,  and  corrupted?  In^ 
ternally,  the  question  has  to  face  the  tendencies,  due  to  pres- 
ent economic  conditions,  which  split  society  into  classes  some 
of  which  are  made  merely  tools  for  the  higher  culture  of  others. 
Externally,  the  question  is  concerned  with  the  reconcihation 
of  national  loyalty,  of  patriotism,  with  superior  devotion  to 
the  things  which  unite  men  in  common  ends,  irrespective  of 
national  poHtical  boundaries.  Neither  phase  of  the  problem 
can  be  worked  out  by  merely  negative  means.  It  is  not 
enough  to  see  to  it  that  education  is  not  actively  used  as  an 
instrument  to  make  easier  the  exploitation  of  one  class  by 
another.  School  facilities  must  be  secured  of  sucL  amplitude 
and  efl&ciency  as  will  in  fact  and  ^".t  simply  in  name  discount 
the  effects  of  economic  inequahties,  and  secure  to  all  the 
wards  of  the  nation  equaUty  of  equipment  for  their  future 
'T.reers.  Accomplishment  of  this  end  demands  not  only 
adequate  administrative  provision  of  school  facilities,  and 
such  supplementation  of  family  resources  as  will  enable  youth 
to  take  advantage  of  them,  but  also  such  modification  of 
traditional  ideals  of  culture,  traditional  subjects  of  study  and 
traditional  methods  of  teaching  and  discipHne  as  will  retain 
all  the  youth  under  educational  influences  until  they  are 
equipped  to  be  masters  of  their  own  economic  and  social 
careers.  The  ideal  may  seem  remote  of  execution,  but  the 
democratic  ideal  of  education  is  a  farcical  yet  tragic  delusion 
except  as  the  ideal  more  and  more  dominates  our  pubHc 
system  of  education. 

The  same  principle  has  application  on  the  side  of  the 
considerations  which  concern  the  relations  of  one  nation  to 
another.  It  is  not  enough  to  teach  the  horrors  of  war  and  to 
avoid  everything  which  would  stimulate  international  jealousy 
and  animosity.  The  emphasis  must  be  put  upon  whatever 
binds  people  together  in  cooperative  human  pursuits  and 
results,  apart  from  geographical  limitations.  The  secondary 
and  provisional  character  of  national  sovereignty  in  respect 


The  Democratic  Conception  in  Education        115 

to  the  fuller,  freer,  and  more  fruitful  association  and  intercourse 
of  all  human  beings  with  one  another  must  be  instilled  as  a 
working  disposition  of  mind.  If  these  applications  seem  tc 
be  remote  from  a  consideration  of  the  philosophy  of  education, 
the  impression  shows  that  the  meaning  of  the  idea  of  educa- 
tion previously  developed  has  not  been  adequately  grasped. 
This  conclusion  is  bound  up  with  the  very  idea  of  education 
as  a  freeing  ot  individual  capacity  in  a  progressive  growth 
directed  to  social  aims.  Otherwise  a  democratic  criterion  of 
■"ducation  can  only  be  inconsistently  apphed. 

Summary.  —  Since  education  is  a  social  process,  and  there 
are  many  kinds  of  societies,  a  criterion  for  educational  criti- 
cism and  construction  implies  a  particular  social  ideal.  The 
two  points  selected  by  which  to  measure  the  worth  of  a 
form  of  social  life  are  the  extent  in  which  the  interests  of  a 
group  are  shared  by  all  its  members,  and  the  fullness  and 
freedom  with  which  it  interacts  with  other  groups.  An 
undesirable  society,  in  other  words,  is  one  which  internally 
and  externally  sets  up  barriers  to  free  intercourse  and  com- 
munication of  experience.  A  society  which  makes  provision 
for  participation  in  its  good  of  all  its  members  on  equal 
terms  and  which  secures  flexible  readjustment  of  its  insti- 
tutions through  interaction  of  the  different  forms  of  as- 
sociated life  is  in  so  far  democratic.  Such  a  society  must 
have  a  tvoe  of  education  which  gives  individuals  a  personal 
interest  in  social  relationships  ana  control,  and  the  habits 
of  mind  which  secure  social  changes  without  introducing 
disorder. 

Three  typical  historic  philosophies  of  education  were  con- 
sidered from  this  point  of  view.  The  Platonic  was  found  to 
have  an  ideal  formally  quite  similar  to  that  stated,  but  which 
was  compromised  in  its  working  out  by  making  a  class  rather 
than  an  individual  the  social  unit.  The  so-called  individualism 
of  the  eighteenth-century  enlightenment  was  found  to  involve 
the  notion  of  a  society  as  broad  as  humanity,  of  whose  progress 


ti6  Philosophy  of  Education 

the  individual  was  to  be  the  organ.  But  it  lacked  any  agency 
for  securing  the  development  of  its  ideal  as  was  evidenced 
In  its  falling  back  upon  Nature.  The  institutional  idealistic 
philosophies  of  the  nineteenth  century  supplied  this  lack  by 
making  the  national  state  the  agency,  but  in  so  doing  narrowed 
the  conception  of  the  social  aim  to  those  who  were  members 
of  the  same  political  unit,  and  reintroduced  the  idea  of  the 
subordination  of  the  individual  to  the  institution. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


AIMS  IN  EDUCATION 


1.  The  Nature  of  an  Aim.  —  The  account  of  education 
given  in  our  earlier  chapters  virtually  anticipated  the  results 
reached  in  a  discussion  of  the  purport  of  education  in  a  dem- 
ocratic community.  For  it  assumed  that  the  aim  of  education 
is  to  enable  individuals  to  continue  their  education  —  or 
that  the  object  and  reward  of  learning  is  continued  capacity 
for  growth.  Now  this  idea  cannot  be  applied  to  all  the  mem- 
bers of  a  society  except  where  intercourse  of  man  with  man  is 
mutual,  and  except  where  there  is  adequate  provision  for  the 
reconstruction  of  social  habits  and  institutions  by  means  of 
wide  stimulation  arising  from  equitably  distributed  interests. 
And  this  means  a  democratic  society.  In  our  search  for  aims 
in  education,  we  are  not  concerned,  therefore,  with  finding 
an  end  outside  of  the  educative  process  to  which  education  is 
subordinate.  Our  whole  conception  forbids.  We  are  rather 
concerned  with  the  contrast  which  exists  when  aims  belong 
within  the  process  in  which  they  operate  and  when  they  are 
set  up  from  without.  And  the  latter  state  of  afifairs  must 
obtain  when  social  relationships  are  not  equitably  balanced. 
For  in  that  case,  some  portions  of  the  whole  social  group  will 
find  their  aims  determined  by  an  external  dictation;  their 
aims  will  not  arise  from  the  free  growth  of  their  own  experience, 
and  their  nominal  aims  will  be  means  to  more  ulterior  ends  of 
others  rather  than  truly  their  own. 

Our  first  question  is  to  define  the  nature  of  an  aim  so  far 
as  it  falls  within  an  activity,  instead  of  being  furnished  from 
without.  We  approach  the  definition  by  a  contrast  of  mere 
results  with  ends.    Any  exhibition  of  energy  has  results.     The 

117 


ii8  Philosophy  of  Education 

wind  blows  about  the  sands  of  the  desert ;  the  position  of  the 
grains  is  changed.  Here  is  a  result,  an  effect,  but  not  an  end. 
For  there  is  nothing  in  the  outcome  which  completes  or  fulfills 
what  went  before  it.  There  is  mere  spatial  redistribution. 
One  state  of  affairs  is  just  as  good  as  any  other.  Consequently 
there  is  no  basis  upon  which  to  select  an  earlier  state  of  affairs 
as  a  beginning,  a  later  as  an  end,  and  to  consider  what  inter- 
venes as  a  process  of  transformation  and  realization. 

Consider  for  example  the  activities  of  bees  in  contrast  with 
the  changes  in  the  sands  when  the  wind  blows  them  about. 
The  results  of  the  bees'  actions  may  be  called  ends  not  because 
they  are  designed  or  consciously  intended,  but  because  they 
are  true  terminations  or  completions  of  what  has  preceded. 
When  the  bees  gather  pollen  and  make  wax  and  build  cells» 
each  step  prepares  the  way  for  the  next.  When  cells  are 
built,  the  queen  lays  eggs  in  them ;  when  eggs  are  laid,  they 
are  sealed  and  bees  brood  them  and  keep  them  at  a  temper- 
ature required  to  hatch  them.  When  they  are  hatched,  bees 
feed  the  young  till  they  can  take  care  of  themselves.  Now 
we  are  so  famihar  with  such  facts,  that  we  are  apt  to  dismiss 
them  on  the  ground  that  life  and  instinct  are  a  kind  of  miracu- 
lous thing  anyway.  Thus  we  fail  to  note  what  the  essential 
characteristic  of  the  event  is;  namely,  the  significance  of 
the  temporal  place  and  order  of  each  element ;  the  way  each 
prior  event  leads  into  its  successor  while  the  successor  takes  up 
what  is  furnished  and  utilizes  it  for  some  other  stage,  until 
we  arrive  at  the  end,  which,  as  it  were,  summarizes  and 
finishes  off  the  process. 

Since  aims  relate  always  to  results,  the  first  thing  to  look 
to  when  it  is  a  question  of  aims,  is  whether  the  work  assigned 
possesses  intrinsic  continuity.  Or  is  it  a  mere  serial  aggregate 
of  acts,  fiirst  doing  one  thing  and  then  another?  To  talk 
about  an  educational  aim  when  approximately  each  act  of  a 
pupil  is  dictated  by  the  teacher,  when  the  only  order  in  the 
sequence  of  his  acts  is  that  which  comes  from  the  assignment  of 


Aims  in  Education  119 

lessons  and  the  giving  of  directions  by  another,  is  to  talk  non- 
sense. It  is  equally  fatal  to  an  aim  to  permit  capricious  or  dis- 
continuous action  in  the  name  of  spontaneous  self-expression. 
An  aim  implies  an  orderly  and  ordered  activity,  one  in  which 
the  order  consists  in  the  progressive  completing  of  a  process. 
Given  an  activity  having  a  time  span  and  cumulative  growth 
within  the  time  succession,  and  aim  means  foresight  in  ad- 
vance of  the  end  or  possible  termination.  If  bees  anticipated 
the  consequences  of  their  activity,  if  they  perceived  their  end 
in  imaginative  foresight,  they  would  have  the  primary  element 
in  an  aim.  Hence  it  is  nonsense  to  talk  about  the  aim  of 
education  —  or  any  other  undertaking  —  where  conditions  do 
not  permit  of  foresight  of  results,  and  do  not  stimulate  a  per- 
son to  look  ahead  to  see  what  the  outcome  of  a  given  activity 
is  to  be. 

In  the  next  place  the  aim  as  a  foreseen  end  gives  direction 
to  the  activity ;  it  is  not  an  idle  view  of  a  mere  spectator, 
but  influences  the  steps  taken  to  reach  the  end.  The 
foresight  functions  in  three  ways.  In  the  first  place,  it 
invoh'es  careful  observation  of  the  given  conditions  to  see 
what  are  the  means  available  for  reaching  the  end,  and 
to  discover  the  hindrances  in  the  way.  In  the  second 
place,  it  suggests  the  proper  order  or  sequence  in  the  use  of 
means.  It  facilitates  an  economical  selection  and  arrange- 
ment. In  the  third  place,  it  makes  choice  of  alternatives 
possible.  If  we  can  predict  the  outcome  of  acting  this  way  or 
that,  we  can  then  compare  the  value  of  the  two  courses  of 
action ;  we  can  pass  judgment  upon  their  relative  desirability. 
If  we  know  that  stagnant  water  breeds  mosquitoes  and  that 
they  are  likely  to  carry  disease,  we  can,  disliking  that  antici- 
pated result,  take  steps  to  avert  it.  Since  we  do  not  antici- 
pate results  as  mere  intellectual  onlookers,  but  as  persons 
concerned  in  the  outcome,  we  are  partakers  in  the  process 
which  produces  the  result.  We  intervene  to  bring  about 
tjiis  result  or  that. 


120  Philosophy  of  Education 

Of  course  these  three  points  are  closely  connected  with  one 
another.  We  can  definitely  foresee  results  only  as  we  make 
careful  scrutiny  of  present  conditions,  and  the  importance  of 
the  outcome  supplies  the  motive  for  observations.  The  more 
adequate  our  observations,  the  more  varied  is  the  scene  of 
conditions  and  obstructions  that  presents  itself,  and  the 
more  numerous  are  the  alternatives  between  which  choice 
may  be  made.  In  turn,  the  more  numerous  the  recognized 
possibihties  of  the  situation,  or  alternatives  of  action,  the 
more  meaning  does  the  chosen  activity  possess,  and  the  more 
flexibly  controllable  is  it.  Where  only  a  single  outcome  has 
been  thought  of,  the  mind  has  nothing  else  to  think  of;  the 
meaning  attaching  to  the  act  is  limited.  One  only  steams 
ahead  toward  the  mark.  Sometimes  such  a  narrow  course 
may  be  effective.  But  if  unexpected  difficulties  offer  them- 
selves, one  has  not  as  many  resources  at  command  as  if  he 
had  chosen  the  same  line  of  action  after  a  broader  survey  of 
the  possibihties  of  the  field.  He  cannot  make  needed  read- 
justments readily. 

The  net  conclusion  is  that  acting  with  an  aim  is  all  one  with 
acting  intelHgently.  To  foresee  a  terminus  of  an  act  is  to 
have  a  basis  upon  which  to  observe,  to  select,  and  to  order 
objects  and  our  own  capacities.  To  do  these  things  means 
to  have  a  mind  —  for  mind  is  precisely  intentional  purposeful 
activity  controlled  by  perception  of  facts  and  their  relation- 
ships  to  one  another.  To  have  a  mind  to  do  a  thing  is  to 
foresee  a  future  possibility;  it  is  to  have  a  plan  for  its  ac- 
compHshment ;  it  is  to  note  the  means  which  make  the  plan 
capable  of  execution  and  the  obstructions  in  the  way,  —  or, 
if  it  is  really  a  mind  to  do  the  thing  and  not  a  vague  aspi- 
ration —  it  is  to  have  a  plan  which  takes  account  of  resources 
and  difficulties.  Mind  is  capacity  to  refer  present  conditions 
to  future  results,  and  future  consequences  to  present  conditions. 
And  these  traits  are  just  what  is  meant  by  having  an  aim  or 
a  purpose.    A  man  is  stupid  or  blind  or  unintelligent  —  lack- 


Aims  in  EdticaHon  121 

ing  in  mind  —  just  in  the  degree  in  which  in  any  activity  he 
does  not  know  what  he  is  about,  namely,  the  probable  con- 
sequences of  his  acts.  A  man  is  imperfectly  intelligent  when 
he  contents  himself  with  looser  guesses  about  the  outcome  than 
is  needful,  just  taking  a  chance  with  his  luck,  or  when  he 
forms  plans  apart  from  study  of  the  actual  conditions,  includ- 
ing his  own  capacities.  Such  relative  absence  of  mind  means 
to  make  our  feelings  the  measure  of  what  is  to  happen.  To 
be  intelligent  we  must  "  stop,  look,  listen  "  in  making  the 
plan  of  an  activity. 

To  identify  acting  with  an  aim  and  intelligent  activity  is 
enough  to  show  its  value  —  its  function  in  experience.  We 
are  only  too  given  to  making  an  entity  out  of  the  abstract 
noun  '  consciousness.'  We  forget  that  it  comes  from  the 
adjective  '  conscious.'  To  be  conscious  is  to  be  aware  of 
what  we  are  about ;  conscious  signifies  the  dehberate,  observ- 
ant, planning  traits  of  activity.  Consciousness  is  nothing 
which  we  have  which  gazes  idly  on  the  scene  around  one  or 
which  has  impressions  made  upon  it  by  physical  things;  it 
is  a  name  for  the  purposeful  quahty  of  an  activity,  for  the 
fact  that  it  is  directed  by  an  aim.  Put  the  other  way  about, 
to  have  an  aim  is  to  act  with  meaning,  not  like  an  automatic 
machine ;  it  is  to  mean  to  do  something  and  to  perceive  the 
meaning  of  things  in  the  light  of  that  intent. 

2.  The  Criteria  of  Good  Aims.  —  We  may  apply  the  results 
of  our  discussion  to  a  consideration  of  the  criteria  involved  in 
a  correct  establisliing  of  aims,  (i)  The  aim  set  up  must  be 
an  outgrowth  of  existing  conditions.  It  must  be  based  upon 
a  consideration  of  what  is  already  going  on;  upon  the  re- 
sources and  diflficulties  of  the  situation.  Theories  about 
the  proper  end  of  our  activities  —  educational  and  moral 
theories  —  often  violate  this  principle.  They  assume  ends 
lying  outside  our  activities ;  ends  foreign  to  the  concrete  make- 
up of  the  situation;  ends  which  issue  from  some  outside 
source.    Then  the  problem  is  to  bring  our  activities  to  bear 


122  Philosophy  of  Education 

upon  the  realization  of  these  externally  supplied  ends.  Tht  y 
are  something  for  which  we  ought  to  act.  In  any  case  such 
*  aims  '  limit  intelligence ;  they  are  not  the  expression  of 
mind  in  foresight,  observation,  and  choice  of  the  better  among 
alternative  possibihties.  They  limit  intelHgence  because, 
given  ready-made,  they  must  be  imposed  by  some  authority 
external  to  intelligence,  leaving  to  the  latter  nothing  but  a 
mechanical  choice  of  means. 

(2)  We  have  spoken  as  if  aims  could  be  completely  formed 
prior  to  the  attempt  to  reahze  them.  This  impression  must 
now  be  qualified.  The  aim  as  it  first  emerges  is  a  mere 
tentative  sketch.  The  act  of  striving  to  realize  it  tests  its 
worth.  If  it  suffices  to  direct  activity  successfully,  nothing 
more  is  required,  since  its  whole  function  is  to  set  a  mark  in 
advance ;  and  at  times  a  mere  hint  may  suffice.  But  usually 
—  at  least  in  compHcated  situations  —  acting  upon  it  brings 
to  Ught  conditions  which  had  been  overlooked.  This  calls 
for  revision  of  the  original  aim ;  it  has  to  be  added  to  and 
subtracted  from.  An  aim  must,  th^n,  he  flexible;  it  must  be 
capable  of  alteration  to  meet  circumstances.  An  end  estab- 
lished externally  to  the  process  of  action  is  always  rigid. 
Being  inserted  or  imposed  from  without,  it  is  not  supposed  to 
have  a  working  relationship  to  the  concrete  conditions  of  the 
situation.  What  happens  in  the  course  of  action  neither 
confirms,  refutes,  nor  alters  it.  Such  an  end  can  only  be  in- 
sisted upon.  The  failure  that  results  from  its  lack  of  adap- 
tation is  attributed  simply  to  the  perverseness  of  conditions, 
not  to  the  fact  that  the  end  is  not  reasonable  under  the  cir- 
cumstances. The  value  of  a  legitimate  aim,  on  the  contrary, 
lies  in  the  fact  that  we  can  use  it  to  change  conditions.  It 
is  a  method  for  deahng  with  conditions  so  as  to  effect  desirable 
alterations  in  them.  A  farmer  who  should  passively  accept 
things  just  as  he  finds  them  would  make  as  great  a  mistake  as 
he  who  framed  his  plans  in  complete  disregard  of  what  soil, 
climate,  etc.,  permit.     One  of    the  evils  of  an  abstract  or 


Aims  in  Edtccation  123 

remote  external  aim  in  education  is  that  its  very  inapplica- 
bility in  practice  is  likely  to  react  into  a  haphazard  snatching 
at  immediate  conditions.  A  good  aim  surveys  the  present 
state  of  experience  of  pupils,  and  forming  a  tentative  plan  of 
treatment,  keeps  the  plan  constantly  in  view  and  yet  modifies 
it  as  conditions  develop.  The  aim,  in  short,  is  experimental, 
and  hence  constantly  growing  as  it  is  tested  in  action. 

(3)  The  aim  must  always  represent  a  freeing  of  activities. 
The  term  end  in  view  is  suggestive,  for  it  puts  before  the 
mind  the  termination  or  conclusion  of  some  process.  The 
only  way  in  which  we  can  define  an  activity  is  by  putting 
before  ourselves  the  objects  in  which  it  terminates  —  as 
one's  aim  in  shooting  is  the  target.  But  we  must  remember 
that  the  object  is  only  a  mark  or  sign  by  which  the  mind 
specifies  the  activity  one  desires  to  carry  out.  Strictly  speak- 
ing, not  the  target  but  hitting  the  target  is  the  end  in  view ; 
one  takes  aim  by  means  of  the  target,  but  also  by  the  sight  on 
the  gun.  The  different  objects  whi^^li  are  thought  of  are 
means  of  directing  the  activity.  Thus  one  aims  at,  say,  a 
rabbit ;  what  he  wants  is  to  shoot  straight :  a  certain  kind  of 
activity.  Or,  if  it  is  the  rabbit  he  wants,  it  is  not  rabbit 
apart  from  his  activity,  but  as  a  factor  in  activity ;  he  wants 
to  eat  the  rabbit,  or  to  show  it  as  evidence  of  his  marksman- 
ship —  he  wants  to  do  something  with  it.  The  doing  with 
the  thing,  not  the  thing  in  isolation,  is  his  end.  The  object 
is  but  a  phase  of  the  active  end,  —  continuing  the  activity 
successfully.  This  is  what  is  meant  by  the  phrase,  used  above, 
*  freeing  activity.' 

In  contrast  with  fulfilling  some  process  in  order  that  activity 
may  go  on,  stands  the  static  character  of  an  end  which  is 
imposed  from  without  the  activity.  It  is  always  conceived  of 
as  fixed ;  it  is  something  to  be  attained  and  possessed.  When 
one  has  such  a  notion,  activity  is  a  mere  unavoidable  means 
to  something  else ;  it  is  not  significant  or  important  on  its 
own  account.    As  compared  with  the  end  it  is  but  a  necessary 


124  Philosophy  of  Education 

evil ;  something  which  must  be  gone  through  before  one  can 
reach  the  object  which  is  alone  worth  while.  In  other  words, 
the  external  idea  of  the  aim  leads  to  a  separation  of  means 
from  end,  while  an  end  which  grows  up  within  an  activity  as 
plan  for  its  direction  is  always  both  ends  and  means,  the 
distinction  being  only  one  of  convenience.  Every  means  is  a 
temporary  end  untU  we  have  attained  it.  Every  end  be- 
comes a  means  of  carrying  activity  further  as  soon  as  it  is 
achieved.  We  call  it  end  when  it  marks  off  the  future  direction 
of  the  activity  in  which  we  are  engaged ;  means  when  it  marks 
off  the  present  direction.  Every  divorce  of  end  from  means 
diminishes  by  that  much  the  significance  of  the  activity  and 
tends  to  reduce  it  to  a  drudgery  from  which  one  would  escape 
if  he  could.  A  farmer  has  to  use  plants  and  animals  to  carry 
on  his  farming  activities.  It  certainly  makes  a  great  differ- 
ence to  his  life  whether  he  is  fond  of  them,  or  whether  he 
regards  them  merely  as  means  which  he  has  to  employ  to  get 
something  else  in  which  alone  he  is  interested.  In  the  former 
case,  his  entire  course  of  activity  is  significant ;  each  phase  of 
it  has  its  own  value.  He  has  the  experience  of  realizing  his 
end  at  every  stage ;  the  postponed  aim,  or  end  in  view,  being 
merely  a  sight  ahead  by  which  to  keep  his  activity  going  fully 
and  freely.  For  if  he  does  not  look  ahead,  he  is  more  likely 
to  find  himself  blocked.  The  aim  is  as  definitely  a  means  of 
action  as  is  any  other  portion  of  an  activity. 

3.  Applications  in  Education.  —  There  is  nothing  peculiar 
about  educational  aims.  They  are  just  Hke  aims  in  any 
directed  occupation.  The  educator,  Hke  the  farmer,  has  certain 
things  to  do,  certain  resources  with  which  to  do,  and  certain 
obstacles  with  which  to  contend.  The  conditions  with  which 
the  farmer  deals,  whether  as  obstacles  or  resources,  have  their 
own  structure  and  operation  independently  of  any  purpose 
of  his.  Seeds  sprout,  rain  falls,  the  sun  shines,  insects  devour, 
blight  comes,  the  seasons  change.  His  aim  is  simply  to 
utilize  these  various  conditions;   to  make  his  activities  and 


Aims  in  Education  125 

their  energies  work  together,  instead  of  against  one  another. 
It  would  be  absurd  if  the  farmer  set  up  a  purpose  of  farming, 
without  any  reference  to  these  conditions  of  soil,  climate, 
characteristic  of  plant  growth,  etc.  His  purpose  is  simply  a 
foresight  of  the  consequences  of  his  energies  connected  with 
those  of  the  things  about  him,  a  foresight  used  to  direct  his 
movements  from  day  to  day.  Foresight  of  possible  conse- 
quences leads  to  more  careful  and  extensive  observation  of 
the  nature  and  performances  of  the  things  he  had  to  do  with, 
and  to  laying  out  a  plan  —  that  is,  of  a  certain  order  in  the 
acts  to  be  performed. 

It  is  the  same  with  the  educator,  whether  parent  or  teacher. 
It  is  as  absurd  for  the  latter  to  set  up  their  *  own  '  aims  as 
the  proper  objects  of  the  growth  of  the  children  as  it  would 
be  for  the  farmer  to  set  up  an  ideal  of  fanning  irrespective  of 
conditions.  Aims  mean  acceptance  of  responsibility  for  the 
observations,  anticipations,  and  arrangements  required  in 
carrying  on  a  function — whether  farming  or  educating.  Any 
aim  is  of  value  so  far  as  it  assists  observation,  choice,  and 
planning  in  carrjong  on  activity  from  moment  to  moment 
and  hour  to  hour ;  if  it  gets  in  the  way  of  the  individual's 
own  common  sense  (as  it  will  surely  do  if  imposed  from  with- 
out or  accepted  on  authority)  it  does  harm. 

And  it  is  well  to  remind  ourselves  that  education  as  such 
has  no  aims.  Only  persons,  parents,  and  teachers,  etc.,  have 
aims,  not  an  abstract  idea  hke  education.  And  consequently 
their  purposes  are  indefinitely  varied,  dififering  with  different 
children,  changing  as  children  grow  and  with  the  growth  of 
experience  on  the  part  of  the  one  who  teaches.  Even  the  most 
valid  aims  which  can  be  put  in  words  will,  as  words,  do  more 
harm  than  good  unless  one  recognizes  that  they  are  not  aims, 
but  rather  suggestions  to  educators  as  to  how  to  observe,  how 
to  look  ahead,  and  how  to  choose  in  liberating  and  directing 
the  energies  of  the  concrete  situations  in  which  they  find  them- 
selves.   As  a  recent  writer  has  said :   "  To  lead  this  boy  to 


126  Philosophy  of  Education 

read  Scott's  novels  instead  of  old  Sleuth's  stories ;  to  teach  this 
girl  to  sew;  to  root  out  the  habit  of  bullying  from  John's 
make  up ;  to  prepare  this  class  to  study  medicine,  —  these 
are  samples  of  the  millions  ot  aims  we  have  actually  before 
us  in  the  concrete  work  of  education." 

Bearing  these  qualifications  in  mind,  we  shall  proceed  to 
state  some  of  the  characteristics  found  in  all  good  educational 
aims,  (i)  An  educational  aim  must  be  founded  upon  the 
intrinsic  activities  and  needs  (including  original  instincts 
and  acquired  habits)  of  the  given  individual  to  be  educated. 
The  tendency  of  such  an  aim  as  preparation  is,  as  we  have 
seen,  to  omit  existing  powers,  and  find  the  aim  in  some  remote 
accomplishment  or  responsibility.  In  general,  there  is  a 
disposition  to  take  considerations  which  are  dear  to  the 
hearts  of  adults  and  set  them  up  as  ends  irrespective  of  the 
capacities  of  those  educated.  There  is  also  an  inclination  to 
propound  aims  which  are  so  uniform  as  to  neglect  the  specific 
powers  and  requirements  of  an  individual,  forgetting  that 
all  learning  is  something  which  happens  to  an  individual  at 
a  given  time  and  place.  The  larger  range  of  perception  of 
the  adult  is  of  great  value  in  observing  the  abilities  and 
weaknesses  of  the  young,  in  deciding  what  they  may  amount 
to.  Thus  the  artistic  capacities  of  the  adult  exhibit  what 
certain  tendencies  of  the  child  are  capable  of;  if  we  did 
not  have  the  adult  achievements  we  should  be  without 
assurance  as  to  the  significance  of  the  drawing,  reproducing, 
modeling,  coloring  activities  of  childhood.  So  if  it  were  not 
for  adult  language,  we  should  not  be  able  to  see  the  import  of 
the  babbling  impulses  of  infancy.  But  it  is  one  thing  to  use 
adult  accomplishments  as  a  context  in  which  to  place  and 
survey  the  doings  of  childhood  and  youth ;  it  is  quite  another 
to  set  them  up  as  a  fixed  aim  without  regard  to  the  concrete 
activities  of  those  educated. 

(2)  An  aim  must  be  capable  of  translation  into  a  method 
of  cooperating  with  the  activities  of  those  undergoing  in- 


Aims  in  Education  127 

struction.  It  must  suggest  the  kind  of  environment  needed 
to  liberate  and  to  organize  their  capacities.  Unless  it  lends 
itself  to  the  construction  of  specific  procedures,  and  unless 
these  procedures  test,  correct,  and  amplify  the  aims,  the 
latter  is  worthless.  Instead  of  helping  the  specific  task  of 
teaching,  it  prevents  the  use  of  ordinary  judgment  in  ob- 
ser\'ing  and  sizing  up  the  situation.  It  operates  to  exclude 
recognition  of  everything  except  what  squares  up  with  the 
fixed  end  in  view.  Every  rigid  aim  just  because  it  is  rigidly 
given  seems  to  render  it  unnecessary  to  give  careful  attention 
to  concrete  conditions.  Since  it  must  apply  anyhow,  what  is 
the  use  of  noting  details  which  do  not  count  ? 

The  vice  of  externally  imposed  ends  has  deep  roots.  Teach- 
ers receive  them  from  superior  authorities;  these  authorities 
accept  them  from  what  is  current  in  the  community.  The 
teachers  impose  them  upon  children.  As  a  first  consequence, 
the  inteUigence  of  the  teacher  is  not  free;  it  is  confined  to 
receiving  the  aims  laid  down  from  above.  Too  rarely  is  the 
individual  teacher  so  free  from  the  dictation  of  authoritative 
supervisor,  textbook  on  methods,  prescribed  course  of  study, 
etc.,  that  he  can  let  his  mind  come  to  close  quarters  with  the 
pupil's  mind  and  the  subject  matter.  This  distrust  of  the 
teacher's  experience  is  then  reflected  in  lack  of  confidence  in 
the  responses  of  pupils.  The  latter  receive  their  aims  through 
a  double  or  treble  external  imposition,  and  are  constantly 
confused  by  the  conflict  between  the  aims  which  are  natural 
to  their  own  experience  at  the  time  and  those  in  which  they 
are  taught  to  acquiesce.  Until  the  democratic  criterion  of  the 
intrinsic  significance  of  every  growing  experience  is  recognized, 
we  shall  be  intellectually  confused  by  the  demand  for  adapta- 
tion to  external  aims. 

(3)  Educators  have  to  be  on  their  guard  against  ends  that 
are  alleged  to  be  general  and  ultimate.  Every  activity,  how- 
ever specific,  is,  of  course,  general  in  its  ramified  connections, 
for  it  leads  out  indefinitely  into  other  things.     So  far  as  a 


128  Philosophy  of  Education 

general  idea  makes  us  more  alive  to  these  comiections,  It 
cannot  be  too  general.  But  '  general '  also  means  '  ab- 
stract/ or  detached  from  all  specific  context.  And  such  ab- 
stractness  means  remoteness,  and  throws  us  back,  once  roate, 
upon  teaching  and  learning  as  mere  means  of  getting  ready  for 
an  end  disconnected  from  the  means.  That  education  is 
literally  and  all  the  time  its  own  reward  means  that  no  alleged 
study  or  discipline  is  educative  unless  it  is  worth  while  in 
its  own  immediate  having,  A  truly  general  aim  broadens 
the  outlook;  it  stimulates  one  to  take  more  consequences 
(connections)  into  account.  This  means  a  wider  and  more 
flexible  observation  of  means.  The  more  interacting  forces, 
for  example,  the  farmer  takes  into  account,  the  more  varied 
will  be  his  immediate  resources.  He  will  see  a  greater  num- 
ber of  possible  starting  places,  and  a  greater  number  of  ways 
of  getting  at  what  he  wants  to  do.  The  fuller  one's  concep- 
tion of  possible  future  achievements,  the  less  his  present 
activity  is  tied  down  to  a  small  number  of  alternatives.  If 
one  knew  enough,  one  could  start  almost  anywhere  and  sus- 
tain his  activities  continuously  and  fruitfully. 

Understanding  then  the  term  general  or  comprehensive 
aim  simply  in  the  sense  of  a  broad  survey  of  the  field  of  present 
activities,  we  shall  take  up  some  of  the  larger  ends  which  have 
currency  in  the  educational  theories  of  the  day,  and  consider 
what  light  they  throw  upon  the  immediate  concrete  and 
diversified  aims  which  are  always  the  educator's  real  concern. 
We  premise  (as  indeed  immediately  follows  from  what  has 
been  said)  that  there  is  no  need  of  making  a  choice  among 
them  or  regarding  them  as  competitors.  When  we  come  to 
act  in  a  tangible  way  we  have  to  select  or  choose  a  particular 
act  at  a  particular  time,  but  any  number  of  comprehensive 
ends  may  exist  without  competition,  since  they  mean  simply 
different  ways  of  looking  at  the  same  scene.  One  cannot 
climb  a  number  of  different  mountains  simultaneously,  but 
the  views  had  when  different  mountains  are  ascended  supple- 


Aims  in  Education  129 

ment  one  another :  they  do  not  set  up  incompatible,  competing 
worlds.  Or,  putting  the  matter  in  a  slightly  different  way, 
one  statement  of  an  end  may  suggest  certain  questions  and 
observations,  and  another  statement  another  set  of  questions, 
calling  for  other  observations.  Then  the  more  general  ends 
we  have,  the  better.  One  statement  will  emphasize  what 
£inother  slurs  over.  What  a  pluraHty  of  hypotheses  does  for 
the  scientific  investigator,  a  plurality  of  stated  aims  may  do 
for  the  instructor. 

Summary.  —  An  aim  denotes  the  result  of  any  natural 
process  brought  to  consciousness  and  made  a  factor  in  de- 
termining present  observation  and  choice  of  ways  of  acting. 
It  signifies  that  an  activity  has  become  intelligent.  Specifi- 
cally it  means  foresight  of  the  alternative  consequences  attend- 
ant upon  acting  in  a  given  situation  in  different  ways,  and 
the  use  of  what  is  anticipated  to  direct  observation  and 
experiment.  A  true  aim  is  thus  opposed  at  every  point 
to  an  aim  which  is  imposed  upon  a  process  of  action  from 
without.  The  latter  is  fixed  and  rigid ;  it  is  not  a  stimulus 
to  intelligence  in  the  given  situation,  but  is  an  externally 
dictated  order  to  do  such  and  such  things.  Instead  of  con- 
necting directly  with  present  activities,  it  is  remote,  divorced 
from  the  means  by  which  it  is  to  be  reached.  Instead  of 
suggesting  a  freer  and  better  balanced  activity,  it  is  a  limit 
set  to  activity.  In  education,  the  currency  of  these  externally 
imposed  aims  is  responsible  for  the  emphasis  put  upon  the 
notion  of  preparation  for  a  remote  future  and  for  rendering 
the  work  of  both  teacher  and  pupil  mechanical  and  slavish. 


CHAPTER  IX 

NATURAL   DEVELOPMENT   AND    SOCIAL    EFFICIENCY   AS   AIMS 

1.  Nature  as  Supplying  the  Aim.  —  We  have  just  pointed 
out  the  futihty  of  trying  to  estabHsh  the  aim  of  education  — 
some  one  final  aim  which  subordinates  all  others  to  itself.  We 
have  indicated  that  since  general  aims  are  but  prospective 
points  of  view  from  which  to  survey  the  existing  conditions 
and  estimate  their  possibilities,  we  might  have  any  number  of 
them,  all  consistent  with  one  another.  As  matter  of  fact,  a 
large  number  have  been  stated  at  different  times,  all  ha\dng 
great  local  value.  For  the  statement  of  aim  is  a  matter  of 
emphasis  at  a  given  time.  And  we  do  not  emphasize  things 
which  do  not  require  emphasis  —  that  is,  such  things  as  are 
taking  care  of  themselves  fairly  well.  We  tend  rather  to 
frame  our  statement  on  the  basis  of  the  defects  and  needs  ot 
the  contemporary  situation;  we  take  for  granted,  without 
explicit  statement  which  would  be  of  no  use,  whatever  is  right 
or  approximately  so.  We  frame  our  explicit  aims  in  terms 
of  some  alteration  to  be  brought  about.  It  is,  then,  no  para- 
dox requiring  explanation  that  a  given  epoch  or  generation 
tends  to  emphasize  in  its  conscious  projections  just  the  things 
A^hich  it  has  least  of  in  actual  fact.  A  time  of  domination  by 
authority  will  call  out  as  response  the  desirabihty  of  great  in- 
dividual freedom;  one  of  disorganized  individual  activities 
the  need  of  social  control  as  an  educational  aim. 

The  actual  and  implicit  practice  and  the  conscious  or  stated 
aim  thus  balance  each  other.  At  different  times  such  aims  as 
complete  living,  better  methods  of  language  study,  substitu- 
tion of  things  for  words,  social  efficiency,  personal  culture, 

i.-;o 


Natural  Development  and  Social  Efficiency  as  Aims     131 

social  ser\dce,  complete  development  of  personality,  en- 
cyclopedic knowledge,  discipline,  aesthetic  contemplation, 
utility,  etc.,  have  served.  The  following  discussion  takes  up 
three  statements  of  recent  influence;  certain  others  have 
been  incidentally  discussed  in  the  previous  chapters,  and 
others  will  be  considered  later  in  a  discussion  of  knowledge 
and  of  the  values  of  studies.  We  begin  with  a  consideration 
that  education  is  a  process  of  development  in  accordance  with 
nature,  taking  Rousseau's  statement,  which  opposed  natural  to 
social  (See  ante,  p.  106) ;  and  then  pass  over  to  the  antithetical 
conception  of  social  efficiency,  which  often  opposes  social  to 
natural. 

(i)  Educational  reformers  disgusted  with  the  convention- 
aHty  and  artificiality  of  the  scholastic  methods  they  find  about 
them  are  prone  to  resort  to  nature  as  a  standard.  Nature  is 
supposed  to  furnish  the  law  and  the  end  of  development ;  ours 
it  is  to  follow  and  conform  to  her  ways.  The  positive  value  of 
this  conception  lies  in  the  forcible  way  in  which  it  calls  atten- 
tion to  the  wrongness  of  aims  which  do  not  have  regard  to  the 
natural  endowment  of  those  educated.  Its  weakness  is  the 
ease  with  which  natural  in  the  sense  of  normal  is  confused  with 
the  physical.  The  constructive  use  of  intelligence  in  fore- 
sight, and  contriving,  is  then  discounted ;  we  are  just  to  get 
out  of  the  way  and  allow  nature  to  do  the  work.  Since  no 
one  has  stated  in  the  doctrine  both  its  truth  and  falsity  better 
than  Rousseau,  we  shall  turn  to  him, 

"  Education,"  he  says,  "  we  receive  from  three  sources  — 
Nature,  men,  and  things.  The  spontaneous  development  of 
our  organs  and  capacities  constitutes  the  education  of  Nature. 
The  use  to  which  we  are  taught  to  put  this  development  con- 
stitutes that  education  given  us  by  Men.  The  acquirement 
of  personal  experience  from  surrounding  objects  constitutes 
that  of  things.  Only  when  these  three  kinds  of  education  are 
consonant  and  make  for  the  same  end,  does  a  man  tend 
towards  his  true  goal.  ...    If  we  are  asked  what  is  this  end. 


132  Philosophy  of  Education 

the  answer  is  that  of  Nature.  For  since  the  concurrence  of 
the  three  kinds  of  education  is  necessary  to  their  completeness, 
the  kind  which  is  entirely  independent  of  our  control  must 
necessarily  regulate  us  in  determining  the  other  two."  Then 
he  defines  Nature  to  mean  the  capacities  and  dispositions 
which  are  inborn,  "  as  they  exist  prior  to  the  modification 
due  to  constraining  habits  and  the  influence  of  the  opinion 
Df  others." 

The  wording  of  Rousseau  will  repay  careful  study.  It 
contains  as  fundamental  truths  as  have  been  uttered  about 
education  in  conjunction  with  a  curious  twist.  It  would  be 
impossible  to  say  better  what  is  said  in  the  fijst  sentences. 
The  three  factors  of  educative  development  are  (a)  the  native 
structure  of  our  bodily  organs  and  their  functional  activities ; 
(b)  the  uses  to  which  the  activities  of  these  organs  are  put 
under  the  influence  of  other  persons;  (c)  their  direct  inter- 
action with  the  environment.  This  statement  certainly 
covers  the  ground.  His  other  two  propositions  are  equally 
sound ;  namely,  (a)  that  only  when  the  three  factors  of  edu- 
cation are  consonant  and  cooperative  does  adequate  develop- 
ment of  the  individual  occur,  and  (b)  that  the  native  activities 
of  the  organs,  being  original,  are  basic  in  conceiving  conso- 
nance. 

But  it  requires  but  little  reading  between  the  lines,  sup- 
plemented by  other  statements  of  Rousseau,  to  perceive  that 
instead  of  regarding  these  three  things  as  factors  which  musi 
work  together  to  some  extent  in  order  that  any  one  of  them 
may  proceed  educatively,  he  regards  them  as  separate  and  in- 
dependent operations.  Especially  does  he  beheve  that  there 
is  an  independent  and,  as  he  says,  '  spontaneous  '  develop- 
ment of  the  native  organs  and  faculties.  He  thinks  that  this 
development  can  go  on  irrespective  of  the  use  to  which  they 
are  put.  And  it  is  to  this  separate  development  that  educa- 
tion coming  from  social  contact  is  to  be  subordinated.  Now 
there  is  an  immense  difference  between  a  use  of  native  activi- 


Natural  Development  and  Social  Efficiency  as  Aims     133 

ties  in  accord  with  those  activities  themselves  —  as  distinct 
from  forcing  them  and  perverting  them — and  supposing  that 
they  have  a  normal  development  apart  from  any  use,  which 
development  furnishes  the  standard  and  norm  of  all  learning 
by  use.  To  recur  to  our  previous  illustration,  the  process  of 
acquiring  language  is  a  practically  perfect  model  of  proper 
educative  growth.  The  start  is  from  native  activities  of  the 
vocal  apparatus,  organs  of  hearing,  etc.  But  it  is  absurd  to 
suppose  that  these  have  an  independent  growth  of  their  own, 
which  left  to  itself  would  evolve  a  perfect  speech.  Taken 
literally,  Rousseau's  principle  would  mean  that  adults  should 
accept  and  repeat  the  babbHngs  and  noises  of  children  not 
merely  as  the  beginnings  of  the  development  of  articulate 
speech  —  which  they  are  —  but  as  furnishing  language  itself 
' —  the  standard  for  all  teaching  of  language. 

The  point  may  be  summarized  by  saying  that  Rousseau 
was  right,  introducing  a  much-needed  reform  into  education, 
in  holding  tnat  the  structure  and  activities  of  the  organs 
furnish  the  conditions  of  all  teaching  of  the  use  of  the  organs ; 
but  profoundly  wrong  in  intimating  that  they  supply  not  only 
the  conditions  but  also  the  ends  of  their  development.  As 
matter  of  fact,  the  native  acti^dties  develop,  in  contrast  with 
random  and  capricious  exercise,  through  the  uses  to  which 
they  are  put.  And  the  office  of  the  social  medium  is,  as  we 
have  seen,  to  direct  growth  through  putting  powers  to  the  best 
possible  use.  The  instil  \ctive  activities  may  be  called,  meta- 
phorically, spontaneous,  in  the  sense  that  the  organs  give  a 
strong  bias  for  a  certain  sort  of  operation,  —  a  bias  so  strong 
that  we  cannot  go  contrary  to  it,  though  by  trying  to  go  con- 
trary we  may  pervert,  stiuit,  and  corrupt  them.  But  the 
notion  of  a  spontaneous  normal  development  of  these  activi- 
ties is  pure  mythology.  The  natural,  or  native,  powers  furnish 
the  initiating  and  limiting  forces  in  all  education ;  they  do  not 
furnish  its  ends  or  aims.  There  is  no  learning  except  from  a 
beginning  in  unlearned  powers,  but  learning  is  not  a  matter  of 


134  Philosophy  of  Education 

the  spontaneous  overflow  of  the  unlearned  powers.  Rous- 
seau's contrary  opinion  is  doubtless  due  to  the  fact  that  he 
identified  God  with  Nature ;  to  him  the  original  powers  are 
wholly  good,  coming  directly  from  a  wise  and  good  creator. 
To  paraphrase  the  old  saying  about  the  country  and  the  town, 
God  made  the  original  human  organs  and  faculties,  man  makes 
the  uses  to  which  they  are  put.  Consequently  the  develop- 
ment of  the  former  furnishes  the  standard  to  which  the  latter 
must  be  subordinated.  When  men  attempt  to  determine 
the  uses  to  which  the  original  activities  shall  be  put,  they  in- 
terfere with  a  divine  plan.  This  interference  by  social  ar- 
rangements with  Nature,  God's  work,  is  the  primary  source  of 
corruption  in  individuals.  Rousseau's  passionate  assertion 
of  the  intrinsic  goodness  of  all  natural  tendencies  was  a  reac- 
tion against  the  prevalent  notion  of  the  total  depravity  of 
innate  human  nature,  and  has  had  a  powerful  influence  in 
modifying  the  attitude  towards  children's  interests.  But  it  is 
hardly  necessary  to  say  that  primitive  impulses  are  of  them- 
selves neither  good  nor  evil,  but  become  one  or  the  other 
according  to  the  objects  for  which  they  are  employed.  That 
neglect,  suppression,  and  premature  forcing  of  some  instincts 
at  the  expense  of  others,  are  responsible  for  many  avoid- 
able ills,  there  can  be  no  doubt.  But  the  moral  is  not  to 
leave  them  alone  to  follow  their  own  "  spontaneous  develop- 
ment," but  to  provide  an  envirormient  which  shall  organize 
them. 

Returning  to  the  elements  of  truth  contained  in  Rousseau's 
statements,  we  find  that  natural  development,  as  an  aim,  en- 
ables him  to  point  the  means  of  correcting  many  evils  in  current 
practices,  and  to  indicate  a  number  of  desirable  specific 
aims,  (i)  Natural  development  as  an  aim  fi^es  attention 
upon  the  bodily  organs  and  the  need  of  health  and  vigor. 
The  aim  of  natural  development  says  to  parents  and  teachers : 
Make  health  an  aim;  normal  development  cannot  be  had 
without  regard  to  the  vigor  of  the  body  —  an  obvious  enough 


Natural  Development  and  Social  Efficiency  as  Aims     135 

fact  and  yet  one  whose  due  recognition  in  practice  would 
almost  automatically  revolutionize  many  of  our  educational 
practices.  "  Nature  "  is  indeed  a  vague  and  metaphorical 
term,  but  one  thing  that  "  Nature  "  may  be  said  to  utter  is 
that  there  are  conditions  of  educational  efficiency,  and  that 
till  we  have  learned  what  these  conditions  are  and  have 
learned  to  make  our  practices  accord  with  them,  the  noblest 
and  most  ideal  of  our  aims  are  doomed  to  suffer  —  are  verbal 
and  sentimental  rather  than  efficacious. 

(2)  The  aim  of  natural  development  translates  into  the  aim 
of  respect  for  physical  mobility.  In  Rousseau's  words : 
"  Children  are  always  in  motion ;  a  sedentary  life  is  injurious." 
When  he  says  that  "  Nature's  intention  is  to  strengthen  the 
body  before  exercising  the  mind  "  he  hardly  states  the  fact 
fairly.  But  if  he  had  said  that  nature's  "  intention  "  (to  adopt 
his  poetical  form  of  speech)  is  to  develop  the  mind  especially 
by  exercise  of  the  muscles  of  the  body  he  would  have  stated 
a  positive  fact.  In  other  words,  the  aim  of  following  nature 
means,  in  the  concrete,  regard  for  the  actual  part  played  by 
use  of  the  bodily  organs  in  explorations,  in  handling  of  ma- 
terials, in  plays  and  games. 

(3)  The  general  aim  translates  into  the  aim  of  regard  foi 
individual  differences  among  children.  Nobody  can  take  the 
principle  of  consideration  of  native  powers  into  account  with- 
out being  struck  by  the  fact  that  these  powers  differ  in  different 
individuals.  The  difference  appUes  not  merely  to  their  in- 
tensity, but  even  more  to  their  quaHty  and  arrangement. 
As  Rousseau  said :  "  Each  individual  is  born  with  a  distinc- 
tive temperament.  .  .  .  We  indiscriminately  employ  children 
of  different  bents  on  the  same  exercises ;  their  education  de- 
stroys the  special  bent  and  leaves  a  dull  uniformity.  There- 
fore after  we  have  wasted  our  efforts  in  stunting  the  true 
gifts  of  nature  we  see  the  short-lived  and  illusory  brilliance 
we  have  substituted  die  away,  while  the  natural  abilities 
we  have  crushed  do  not  re  viva" 


136  Philosophy  of  Education 

Lastly,  the  aim  of  following  nature  means  to  note  the  origin, 
the  waxing,  and  waning,  of  preferences  and  interests.  Capaci- 
ties bud  and  bloom  irregularly ;  there  is  no  even  four-abreast 
development.  We  must  strike  while  the  iron  is  hot.  Espe- 
cially precious  are  the  first  dawnings  of  power.  More  than 
we  imagine,  the  ways  in  which  the  tendencies  of  early  childhood 
are  treated  fix  fundamental  dispositions  and  condition  the  turn 
taken  by  powers  that  show  themselves  later.  Educational 
concern  with  the  early  years  of  Hfe  —  as  distinct  from  incul- 
cation of  useful  arts  —  dates  almost  entirely  from  the  time  of 
the  emphasis  by  Pestalozzi  and  Froebel,  following  Rousseau, 
of  natural  principles  of  growth.  The  irregularity  of  growth 
and  its  significance  is  indicated  in  the  following  passage  of  a 
student  of  the  growth  of  the  nervous  system.  "  While  growth 
continues,  things  bodily  and  mental  are  lopsided,  for  growth  is 
never  general,  but  is  accentuated  now  at  one  spot,  now  at 
another.  .  .  .  The  methods  which  shall  recognize  in  the  pres- 
ence of  these  enormous  differences  of  endowment  the  dynamic 
values  of  natural  inequalities  of  growth,  and  utihze  them, 
preferring  irregularity  to  the  rounding  out  gained  by  pruning 
will  most  closely  follow  that  which  takes  place  in  the  body  and 
thus  prove  most  effective."  ^ 

Observation  of  natural  tendencies  is  difficult  under  con- 
ditions of  restraint.  They  show  themselves  most  readily  in 
a  child's  spontaneous  sayings  and  doings,  —  that  is,  in  those 
he  engages  in  when  not  put  at  set  tasks  and  when  not  aware 
of  being  under  observation.  It  does  not  follow  that  these 
tendencies  are  all  desirable  because  they  are  natural ;  but  it 
does  follow  that  since  they  are  there,  they  are  operative  and 
must  be  taken  account  of.  We  must  see  to  it  that  the  de- 
sirable ones  have  an  environment  which  keeps  them  active, 
and  that  their  activity  shall  control  the  direction  the  others 
take  and  thereby  induce  the  disuse  of  the  latter  because  they 
lead  to  nothing.  Many  tendencies  that  trouble  parents  when 
^  Donaldson,  "  Growth  of  Brain,"  p.  356. 


Natural  Development  and  Social  Efficiency  as  Aims     137 

they  appear  are  likely  to  be  transitory,  and  sometimes  too 
much  direct  attention  to  them  only  fixes  a  child's  attention 
upon  them.  At  all  events,  adults  too  easily  assume  their  own 
habits  and  wishes  as  standards,  and  regard  all  deviations  of 
children's  impulses  as  evils  to  be  eHminated.  That  artificiality 
against  which  the  conception  of  following  nature  is  so  largely  a 
protest,  is  the  outcome  of  attempts  to  force  children  directly 
into  the  mold  of  grown-up  standards. 

In  conclusion,  we  note  that  the  early  history  of  the  idea  of 
following  nature  combined  two  factors  which  had  no  inherent 
connection  with  one  another.  Before  the  time  of  Rousseau 
educational  reformers  had  been  incUned  to  urge  the  impor- 
tance of  education  by  ascribing  practically  unlimited  power  to 
it.  All  the  differences  between  peoples  and  between  classes 
and  persons  among  the  same  people  were  said  to  be  due  to  differ- 
ences of  training,  of  exercise,  and  practice.  Originally,  mind, 
reason,  understanding  is,  for  all  practical  purposes,  the  same  in 
all.  This  essential  identity  of  mind  means  the  essential  equal- 
ity of  all  and  the  possibility  of  bringing  them  all  to  the  same 
level.  As  a  protest  against  this  view,  the  doctrine  of  accord 
with  nature  meant  a  much  less  formal  and  abstract  view  of 
mind  and  its  powers.  It  substituted  specific  instincts  and  im- 
pulses and  physiological  capacities,  differing  from  individual  to 
individual  (just  as  they  differ,  as  Rousseau  pointed  out,  even  in 
dogs  of  the  same  litter),  for  abstract  faculties  of  discernment, 
memory,  and  generalization.  Upon  this  side,  the  doctrine  of 
educative  accord  with  nature  has  been  reenforced  by  the  de- 
velopment of  modem  biology,  physiology,  and  psychology.  It 
means,  in  effect,  that  great  as  is  the  significance  of  nurture, 
of  modification,  and  transformation  through  direct  educa- 
tional effort,  nature,  or  unlearned  capacities,  affords  the 
foundation  and  ultimate  resources  for  such  nurture. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  doctrine  of  following  nature  was  a 
political  dogma.  It  meant  a  rebellion  against  existing  social 
institutions,  customs,  and  ideals  (See  ante,  p.  107).    Rousseau's 


138  Philosophy  of  Education 

statement  that  everything  is  good  as  it  comes  from  the  hands 
of  the  Creator  has  its  signification  only  in  its  contrast 
with  the  concluding  part  of  the  same  sentence  :  "  Everything 
degenerates  in  the  hands  of  man."  And  again  he  says : 
^'Natural  man  has  an  absolute  value;  he  is  a  numerical 
unit,  a  complete  integer  and  has  no  relation  save  to  himself  and 
to  his  fellow  man.  Civilized  man  is  only  a  relative  unit, 
the  numerator  of  a  fraction  whose  value  depends  upon  its 
denominator,  its  relation  to  the  integral  body  of  society. 
Good  political  institutions  are  those  which  make  a  man 
unnatural."  It  is  upon  this  conception  of  the  artificial  and 
harmful  character  of  organized  social  Hfe  as  it  now  exists^ 
that  he  rested  the  notion  that  nature  not  merely  furnishes 
prime  forces  which  initiate  growth  but  also  its  plan  and  goal. 
That  evil  institutions  and  customs  work  almost  automatically 
to  give  a  wrong  education  which  the  most  careful  schooling 
cannot  offset  is  true  enough ;  but  the  conclusion  is  not  to 
educate  apart  from  the  environment,  but  to  provide  an  en- 
vironment in  which  native  powers  will  be  put  to  better  uses. 

2.  Social  Efficiency  as  Aim.  —  A  conception  which  made 
nature  supply  the  end  of  a  true  education  and  society  the  end 
of  an  evil  one,  could  hardly  fail  to  call  out  a  protest.  The 
opposing  emphasis  took  the  form  of  a  doctrine  that  the 
business  of  education  is  to  supply  precisely  what  nature 
fails  to  secure ;  namely,  habituation  of  an  individual  to  social 
control;  subordination  of  natural  powers  to  social  rules. 
It  is  not  surprising  to  find  that  the  value  in  the  idea  of  social 
efficiency  resides  largely  in  its  protest  against  the  points  at 
which  the  doctrine  of  natural  development  went  astray; 
while  its  misuse  comes  when  it  is  employed  to  slur  over  the 
truth  in  that  conception.     It  is  a  fact  that  we  must  look  to  the 

1  We  must  not  forget  that  Rousseau  had  the  idea  of  a  radically  different 
sort  of  society,  a  fraternal  society  whose  end  should  be  identical  with  the  good 
of  all  its  members,  which  he  thought  to  be  as  much  better  than  existing  states 
as  these  are  worse  than  the  state  of  nature. 


Natural  Development  and  Social  Efficiency  as  Aims     139 

activities  and  achievements  of  associated  life  to  find  what  the 
development  of  power  —  that  is  to  say,  efficiency  —  means. 
The  error  is  in  implying  that  we  must  adopt  measures  of  sub- 
ordination rather  than  of  utilization  to  secure  efficiency. 
The  doctrine  is  rendered  adequate  when  we  recognize  that 
social  efficiency  is  attained  not  by  negative  constraint,  but 
by  positive  use  of  native  individual  capacities  in  occupations 
having  a  social  meaning. 

(i)  Translated  into  specific  aims,  social  efficiency  indicates 
the  importance  of  industrial  competency.  Persons  cannot 
live  without  means  of  subsistence ;  the  ways  in  which  these 
means  are  employed  and  consumed  have  a  profound  in- 
fluence upon  all  the  relationships  of  persons  to  one  another. 
If  an  individual  is  not  able  to  earn  his  own  living  and  that  of 
the  children  dependent  upon  him,  he  is  a  drag  or  parasite  upon 
the  activities  of  others.  He  misses  for  himself  one  of  the  most 
educative  experiences  of  hfe.  If  he  is  not  trained  in  the  right 
use  of  the  products  of  industry,  there  is  grave  danger  that  he 
may  deprave  himself  and  injure  others  in  his  possession  of 
wealth.  No  scheme  of  education  can  afford  to  neglect  such 
basic  considerations.  Yet  in  the  name  of  higher  and  more 
spiritual  ideals,  the  arrangements  for  higher  education 
have  often  not  only  neglected  them,  but  looked  at  them  with 
scorn  as  beneath  the  level  of  educative  concern.  With  the 
change  from  an  oligarchical  to  a  democratic  society,  it  is  natural 
that  the  significance  of  an  education  which  should  have  as  a 
result  abihty  to  make  one's  way  economically  in  the  world,  and 
to  manage  economic  resources  usefully  instead  of  for  mere 
display  and  luxury,  should  receive  emphasis. 

There  is,  however,  grave  danger  that  in  insisting  upon  this 
end,  existing  economic  conditions  and  standards  will  be  ac- 
cepted as  final.  A  democratic  criterion  requires  us  to  develop 
capacity  to  the  point  of  competency  to  choose  and  make  its 
own  career.  This  principle  is  violated  when  the  attempt  is 
made  to  fit  individuals  in  advance  for  definite  industrial  call- 


I40  Philosophy  of  Education 

ings,  selected  not  on  the  basis  of  trained  original  capacities, 
but  on  that  of  the  wealth  or  social  status  of  parents.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  industry  at  the  present  time  undergoes  rapid 
and  abrupt  changes  through  the  evolution  of  new  inventions. 
New  industries  spring  up,  and  old  ones  are  revolutionized. 
Consequently  an  attempt  to  train  for  too  specific  a  mode  of 
efficiency  defeats  its  own  purpose.  When  the  occupation 
changes  its  methods,  such  individuals  are  left  behind  with  even 
less  ability  to  readjust  themselves  than  if  they  had  a  less 
definite  training.  But,  most  of  all,  the  present  industrial  con- 
stitution of  society  is,  Hke  every  society  which  has  ever 
existed,  full  of  inequities.  It  is  the  aim  of  progressive  educa- 
tion to  take  part  in  correcting  unfair  privilege  and  unfair 
deprivation,  not  to  perpetuate  them.  Wherever  social  control 
means  subordination  of  individual  activities  to  class  authority, 
there  is  danger  that  industrial  education  will  be  dominated  by 
acceptance  of  the  status  quo.  Differences  of  economic  opportu- 
nity then  dictate  what  the  future  callings  of  individuals  are 
to  be.  We  have  an  unconsdous  revival  of  the  defects  of  the 
Platonic  scheme  {Ante,  p.  104)  without  its  enlightened  method 
of  selection. 

(2)  Civic  efficiency,  or  good  citizenship.  It  is,  of  course,  ar- 
bitrary to  separate  industrial  competency  from  capacity  in 
good  citizenship.  But  the  latter  term  may  be  used  to  indicate 
a  nimiber  of  qualifications  which  are  vaguer  than  vocational 
ability.  These  traits  run  from  whatever  make  an  individual 
a  more  agreeable  companion  to  citizenship  in  the  political 
sense :  it  denotes  ability  to  judge  men  and  measures  wisely 
and  to  take  a  determining  part  in  making  as  well  as  obeying 
laws.  The  aim  of  civic  efficiency  has  at  least  the  merit  of  pro- 
tecting us  from  the  notion  of  a  training  of  mental  power  at 
large.  It  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  power  must  be  rela- 
tive to  doing  something,  and  to  the  fact  that  the  things  which 
most  need  to  be  done  are  things  which  involve  one's  relation- 
ships with  others. 


Natural  Development  and  Social  Efficiency  as  Aims     141 

Here  again  we  have  to  be  on  guard  against  understanding  the 
aim  too  narrowly.  An  over-definite  interpretation  would  at 
certain  periods  have  excluded  scientific  discoveries,  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  in  the  last  analysis  security  of  social  progress 
depends  upon  them.  For  scientific  men  would  have  been 
thought  to  be  mere  theoretical  dreamers,  totally  lacking  in 
social  efiiciency.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  ultimately 
social  efiiciency  means  neither  more  nor  less  than  capacity  to 
share  in  a  give  and  take  of  experience.  It  covers  all  that 
makes  one's  own  experience  more  worth  while  to  others, 
and  all  that  enables  one  to  participate  more  richly  in  the  worth- 
while experiences  of  others.  Ability  to  produce  and  to  enjoy 
art,  capacity  for  recreation,  the  significant  utilization  of  leisure, 
are  more  important  elements  in  it  than  elements  convention- 
ally associated  oftentimes  with  citizenship. 

In  the  broadest  sense,  social  eflScienc}'  is  nothing  less  than 
that  sociaHzation  of  mind  which  is  actively  concerned  in 
making  experiences  more  communicable;  in  breaking  down 
the  barriers  of  sonal  stratification  which  make  individuals 
impervious  to  the  interests  of  others.  When  social  eflSciency 
is  confined  to  the  service  rendered  by  overt  acts,  its  chief  con- 
stituent (because  its  only  guarantee)  is  omitted,  —  intelligent 
sympathy  or  good  will.  For  sympathy  as  a  desirable  quality 
is  something  more  than  mere  feeling ;  it  is  a  cultivated  imagina- 
tion for  what  men  have  in  conmion  and  a  rebellion  at  whatever 
unnecessarily  divides  them.  What  is  sometimes  called  a  benevo- 
lent interest  in  others  may  be  but  an  unwitting  mask  for  an 
attempt  to  dictate  to  them  what  their  good  shall  be,  instead 
of  an  endeavor  to  free  them  so  that  they  may  seek  and  find 
the  good  of  their  own  choice.  Social  efficiency,  even  social 
service,  are  hard  and  metallic  things  when  severed  from  an 
active  acknowledgment  of  the  diversity  of  goods  which  life 
may  afford  to  different  persons,  and  from  faith  in  the  social 
utility  of  encouraging  every  individual  to  make  his  own  choice 
mtelligent. 


142  Philosophy  of  Education 

3.  Culture  as  Aim.  —  Whether  or  not  social  efficiency  is  an 
aim  which  is  consistent  with  culture  turns  upon  these  consid- 
erations. Culture  means  at  least  something  cultivated,  some- 
thing ripened ;  it  is  opposed  to  the  raw  and  crude.  When 
the  '  natural '  is  identified  with  this  rawness,  culture  is 
opposed  to  what  is  called  natural  development.  Culture  is 
also  something  personal ;  it  is  cultivation  with  respect  to 
appreciation  of  ideas  and  art  and  broad  human  interests. 
When  efficiency  is  identified  with  a  narrow  range  of  acts, 
instead  of  with  the  spirit  and  meaning  of  activity,  culture  is 
opposed  to  efficiency.  Whether  called  culture  or  complete 
development  of  personaUty,  the  outcome  is  identical  with 
the  true  meaning  of  social  efficiency  whenever  attention  is 
given  to  what  is  unique  in  an  individual  —  and  he  would 
not  be  an  individual  if  there  were  not  something  incom- 
mensurable about  him.  Its  opposite  is  the  mediocre,  the 
average.  Whenever  distinctive  quaHty  is  developed,  dis- 
tinction of  personahty  results,  and  with  it  greater  promise  for 
a  social  service  which  goes  beyond  the  supply  in  quantity  of 
material  commodities.  For  how  can  there  be  a  society  really 
worth  serving  unless  it  is  constituted  of  individuals  of  signifi- 
cant personal  qualities? 

The  fact  is  that  the  opposition  of  high  worth  of  personality 
to  social  efficiency  is  a  product  of  a  feudally  organized  society 
with  its  rigid  division  of  inferior  and  superior.  The  latter 
are  supposed  to  have  time  and  opportunity  to  develop  them- 
selves as  human  beings;  the  former  are  confined  to  provid- 
ing external  products.  When  social  efficiency  as  measured 
by  product  or  output  is  urged  as  an  ideal  in  a  would-be 
democratic  society,  it  means  that  the  depreciatory  estimate 
of  the  masses  characteristic  of  an  aristocratic  commxmity 
is  accepted  and  carried  over.  But  if  democracy  has  a  moral 
and  ideal  meaning,  it  is  that  a  social  return  be  demanded 
from  all  and  that  opportunity  for  development  of  distinctive 
capacities  be  afforded  all.     The  separation  of  the  two  aims 


Natural  Development  and  Social  Efficiency  as  Aims     143 

in  education  is  fatal  to  democracy;  the  adoption  of  the 
narrower  meaning  of  efficiency  deprives  it  of  its  essential 
justification. 

The  aim  of  efficiency  (like  any  educational  aim)  must  be 
included  within  the  process  of  experience.  When  it  is  meas- 
ured by  tangible  external  products,  and  not  by  the  achieving 
of  a  distinctively  valuable  experience,  it  becomes  materialistic. 
Results  in  the  way  of  commodities  which  may  be  the  outgrowth 
of  an  efficient  personahty  are,  in  the  strictest  sense,  by-products 
of  education :  by-products  which  are  inevitable  and  im- 
portant, but  nevertheless  by-products.  To  set  up  an  external 
aim  strengthens  by  reaction  the  false  conception  of  culture 
which  identifies  it  with  something  purely  '  inner.'  And 
the  idea  of  perfecting  an  '  inner '  personality  is  a  sure 
sign  of  social  divisions.  What  is  called  inner  is  simply 
that  which  does  not  connect  with  others  —  which  is  not  ca- 
pable of  free  and  full  communication.  What  is  termed 
spiritual  culture  has  usually  been  futile,  with  something 
rotten  about  it,  just  because  it  has  been  conceived  as  a  thing 
which  a  man  might  have  internally  —  and  therefore  ex- 
clusively. What  one  is  as  a  person  is  what  one  is  as  associated 
with  others,  in  a  free  give  and  take  of  intercourse.  This 
transcends  both  the  efficiency  which  consists  in  supplying 
products  to  others  and  the  culture  which  is  an  exclusive  re- 
finement and  polish. 

Any  individual  has  missed  his  calling,  farmer,  physician, 
teacher,  student,  who  does  not  find  that  the  accomplishments 
of  results  of  value  to  others  is  an  accompaniment  of  a  process 
of  experience  inherently  worth  while.  Why  then  should  it 
be  thought  that  one  must  take  his  choice  between  sacrificing 
himself  to  doing  useful  things  for  others,  or  sacrificing  them  to 
pursuit  of  his  own  exclusive  ends,  whether  the  saving  of  his 
own  soul  or  the  building  of  an  inner  spiritual  life  and  per- 
sonality ?  What  happens  is  that  since  neither  of  these  things 
b  persistently  possible,  we  get  a  compromise  and  an  alter- 


144  Philosophy  of  Education 

nation.  One  tries  each  course  by  turns.  There  is  no  greater 
tragedy  than  that  so  much  of  the  professedly  spiritual  and 
religious  thought  of  the  world  has  emphasized  the  two  ideals 
of  self-sacrifice  and  spiritual  self-perfecting  instead  of  throw- 
ing its  weight  against  this  dualism  of  life.  The  duaUsm 
is  too  deeply  estabhshed  to  be  easily  overthrown ;  for  that 
reason,  it  is  the  particular  task  of  education  at  the  present 
time  to  struggle  in  behalf  of  an  aim  in  which  social  effi- 
ciency and  personal  culture  are  synonyms  instead  of  antag- 
onists. 

Summary.  —  General  or  comprehensive  aims  are  points  of 
view  for  surveying  the  specific  problems  of  education.  Con- 
sequently it  is  a  test  of  the  value  of  the  manner  in  which  any 
large  end  is  stated  to  see  if  it  will  translate  readily  and  con- 
sistently into  the  procedures  which  are  suggested  by  another. 
We  have  applied  this  test  to  three  general  aims :  Develop- 
ment according  to  nature,  social  efficiency,  and  culture  or 
personal  mental  enrichment.  In  each  case  we  have  seen  that 
the  aims  when  partially  stated  come  into  conflict  with  each 
other.  The  partial  statement  of  natural  development  takes 
the  primitive  powers  in  an  alleged  spontaneous  development 
as  the  end-all.  From  this  point  of  view  training  which  renders 
them  useful  to  others  is  an  abnormal  constraint;  one  which 
profoundly  modifies  them  through  deliberate  nurture  is 
corrupting.  But  when  we  recognize  that  natural  activities 
mean  native  activities  which  develop  only  through  the  uses  in 
which  they  are  nurtured,  the  conflict  disappears.  Similarly  a 
social  efficiency  which  is  defined  in  terms  of  rendering  external 
service  to  others  is  of  necessity  opposed  to  the  aim  of  enrich- 
ing the  meaning  of  experience,  while  a  culture  which  is  taken 
to  consist  in  an  internal  refinement  of  a  mind  is  opposed  to 
a  socialized  disposition.  But  social  efficiency  as  an  educa- 
tional purpose  should  mean  cultivation  of  power  to  join  freely 
and  fully  in  shared  or  common  activities.  This  is  impossible 
vrithout  culture,  while  it  brings  a  reward  in  culture,  because 


Natural  Development  and  Social  Efficiency  as  Aims     145 

one  cannot  share  in  intercourse  with  others  without  learning  — ■ 
without  getting  a  broader  point  of  view  and  perceiving  things 
of  which  one  would  otherwise  be  ignorant.  And  there  is 
perhaps  no  better  definition  of  culture  than  that  it  is  the  ca- 
pacity for  constantly  expanding  the  range  and  accuracy  of 
one's  perception  of  meanings. 


CHAPTER  X 

INTEREST  AND   DISCEPLINE 

1.  The  Meaning  of  the  Terms.  —  We  have  already  noticed 
the  difference  in  the  attitude  of  a  spectator  and  of  an  agent  or 
participant.  The  former  is  indifferent  to  what  is  going  on ;  ono 
result  is  just  as  good  as  another,  since  each  is  just  something 
to  look  at.  The  latter  is  bound  up  with  what  is  going  on ; 
its  outcome  makes  a  difference  to  him.  His  fortunes  are 
more  or  less  at  stake  in  the  issue  of  events.  Consequently 
he  does  whatever  he  can  to  influence  the  direction  present 
occurrences  take.  One  is  Hke  a  man  in  a  prison  cell  watching 
the  rain  out  of  the  window ;  it  is  all  the  same  to  him.  The 
other  is  like  a  man  who  has  planned  an  outing  for  the  next 
day  which  continuing  rain  will  frustrate.  He  cannot,  to  be- 
sure,  by  his  present  reactions  affect  to-morrow's  weather,  but 
he  may  take  some  steps  which  will  influence  future  happenings, 
if  only  to  postpone  the  proposed  picnic.  If  a  man  sees  a 
carriage  coming  which  may  run  over  him,  if  he  cannot  stop 
its  movement,  he  can  at  least  get  out  of  the  way  if  he  foresees 
the  consequence  in  time.  In  many  instances,  he  can  intervene 
even  more  directly.  The  attitude  of  a  participant  in  the 
course  of  affairs  is  thus  a  double  one :  there  is  solicitude, 
anxiety  concerning  future  consequences,  and  a  tendency  to 
act  to  assure  better,  and  avert  worse,  consequences. 

There  are  words  which  denote  this  attitude  :  concern,  inter- 
est. These  words  suggest  that  a  person  is  bound  up  with  the 
possibihties  inhering  in  objects ;  that  he  is  accordingly  on  the 
lookout  for  what  they  are  likely  to  do  to  him ;  and  that,  on  the 
basis  of  his  expectation  or  foresight,  he  is  eager  to  act  so  as  to 

146 


Interest  and  Discipline  147 

give  things  one  turn  rather  than  another.  Interest  and  aims, 
concern  and  purpose,  are  necessarily  connected.  Such  words 
as  aim,  intent,  end,  emphasize  the  results  which  are  wanted 
and  striven  for ;  they  take  for  granted  the  personal  attitude  of 
solicitude  and  attentive  eagerness.  Such  words  as  interest, 
affection,  concern,  motivation,  emphasize  the  bearing  of  what 
is  foreseen  upon  the  individual's  fortunes,  and  his  active  desire 
to  act  to  secure  a  possible  result.  They  take  for  granted  the 
objective  changes.  But  the  difference  is  but  one  of  emphasis ; 
the  meaning  that  is  shaded  in  one  set  of  words  is  illuminated  in 
the  other.  What  is  anticipated  is  objective  and  impersonal ; 
to-morrow's  rain ;  the  possibility  of  being  run  over.  But  for 
an  active  being,  a  being  who  partakes  of  the  consequences 
instead  of  standing  aloof  from  them,  there  is  at  the  same  time 
a  personal  response.  The  difference  imaginatively  foreseen 
makes  a  present  difference,  which  finds  expression  in  solicitude 
and  effort.  While  such  words  as  affection,  concern,  and 
motive  indicate  an  attitude  of  personal  preference,  they  are 
always  attitudes  toward  objects  —  toward  what  is  foreseen. 
We  may  call  the  phase  of  objective  foresight  intellectual, 
and  the  phase  of  personal  concern  emotional  and  volitional, 
but  there  is  no  separation  in  the  facts  of  the  situation. 

Such  a  separation  could  exist  only  if  the  personal  attitudes 
ran  their  course  in  a  world  by  themselves.  But  they  are 
always  responses  to  what  is  going  on  in  the  situation  of 
which  they  are  a  part,  and  their  successful  or  unsuccessful 
expression  depends  upon  their  interaction  with  other  changes. 
Life  activities  flourish  and  fail  only  in  connection  with  changes 
of  the  environment.  They  are  literally  bound  up  with  these 
changes ;  our  desires,  emotions,  and  affections  are  but  various 
ways  in  which  our  doings  are  tied  up  with  the  doings  of  things 
and  persons  about  us.  Instead  of  marking  a  purely  personal 
or  subjective  realm,  separated  from  the  objective  and  im- 
personal, they  indicate  the  non-existence  of  such  a  separate 
world.    They  afford  convincing   evidence   that   changes   in 


148  Philosophy  of  Education 

things  are  not  alien  to  the  activities  of  a  self,  and  that  the 
career  and  welfare  of  the  self  are  bound  up  with  the  movement 
of  persons  and  things.  Interest,  concern,  mean  that  self  and 
world  are  engaged  with  each  other  in  a  developing  situation. 

The  word  interest,  in  its  ordinary  usage,  expresses  {i)  the 
whole  state  of  active  development,  (ii)  the  objective  results 
that  are  foreseen  and  wanted,  and  (Hi)  the  personal  emotional 
inchnation.  (i)  An  occupation,  employment,  pursuit,  busi- 
ness is  often  referred  to  as  an  interest.  Thus  we  say  that  a 
man's  interest  is  politics,  or  journalism,  or  philanthropy,  or 
archaeology,  or  collecting  Japanese  prints,  or  banking,  (ii)  By 
an  interest  we  also  mean  the  point  at  which  an  object  touches 
or  engages  a  man ;  the  point  where  it  influences  him.  In 
some  legal  transactions  a  man  has  to  prove  "interest"  in  order 
to  have  a  standing  at  court.  He  has  to  show  that  some  pro- 
posed step  concerns  his  affairs.  A  silent  partner  has  an 
interest  in  a  business,  although  he  takes  no  active  part  in  its 
conduct  because  its  prosperity  or  decline  affects  his  profits 
and  liabilities,  (iii)  When  we  speak  of  a  man  as  interested 
in  this  or  that  the  emphasis  falls  directly  upon  his  personal 
attitude.  To  be  interested  is  to  be  absorbed  in,  wrapped  up  in, 
carried  away  by,  some  object.  To  take  an  interest  is  to  be 
on  the  alert,  to  care  about,  to  be  attentive.  We  say  of  an 
Interested  person  both  that  he  has  lost  himself  in  some  affair 
and  that  he  has  found  himself  in  it.  Both  terms  express 
the  engrossment  of  the  seK  in  an  object. 

When  the  place  of  interest  in  education  is  spoken  of  in  a 
depreciatory  way,  it  will  be  found  that  the  second  of  the  mean- 
ings mentioned  is  first  exaggerated  and  then  isolated.  In- 
terest is  taken  to  mean  merely  the  effect  of  an  object  upon 
personal  advantage  or  disadvantage,  success  or  failure. 
Separated  from  any  objective  development  of  affairs,  these  are 
reduced  to  mere  personal  states  of  pleasure  or  pain.  Educa- 
tionally, it  then  follows  that  to  attach  importance  to  interest 
tieans  to  attach  some  feature  of  seductiveness  to  material 


Interest  and  Discipline  149 

otherwise  indifferent ;  to  secure  attention  and  effort  by  offering 
a  bribe  of  pleasure.  This  procedure  is  properly  stigmatized 
as  "  soft  "  pedagogy ;  as  a  "  soup-kitchen  "  theory  of  educa- 
tion. 

But  the  objection  is  based  upon  the  fact  —  or  assumption  — 
that  the  forms  of  skill  to  be  acquired  and  the  subject  matter 
to  be  appropriated  have  no  interest  on  their  own  account :  in 
other  words,  they  are  supposed  to  be  irrelevant  to  the  normal 
activities  of  the  pupils.  The  remedy  is  not  in  finding  fault 
with  the  doctrine  of  interest,  any  more  than  it  is  to  search 
for  some  pleasant  bait  that  may  be  hitched  to  the  alien  material. 
It  is  to  discover  objects  and  modes  of  action,  which  are  con- 
nected with  present  powers.  The  function  of  this  material  in 
engaging  activity  and  carrying  it  on  consistently  and  con- 
tinuously is  its  interest.  If  the  material  operates  in  this  way, 
there  is  no  call  either  to  hunt  for  devices  which  will  make  it 
interesting  or  to  appeal  to  arbitrary,  semi-coerced  effort. 

The  word  interest  suggests,  etymologically,  what  is  between, 
—  that  which  connects  two  things  otherwise  distant.  In 
education,  the  distance  covered  may  be  looked  at  as  temporal. 
The  fact  that  a  process  takes  time  to  mature  is  so  obvious  a 
fact  that  we  rarely  make  it  explicit.  We  overlook  the  fact 
that  in  growth  there  is  ground  to  be  covered  between  an  initial 
stage  of  process  and  the  completing  period;  that  there  is 
something  intervening.  In  learning,  the  present  powers  of 
the  pupil  are  the  initial  stage ;  the  aim  of  the  teacher  repre- 
sents the  remote  hmit.  Between  the  two  lie  means  —  that  is 
middle  conditions :  —  acts  to  be  performed ;  difficulties  to 
be  overcome;  appliances  to  be  used.  Only  through  them, 
in  the  Hteral  time  sense,  will  the  initial  activities  reach  a  sat- 
isfactory consummation. 

These  intermediate  conditions  are  of  interest  precisely  be^ 
cause  the  development  of  existing  activities  into  the  foreseen 
and  desired  end  depends  upon  them.  To  be  means  for  the 
achieving  of  present  tendencies,  to  be  *  between '  the  agent 


I 


150  Philosophy  of  Education 

and  his  end,  to  be  of  interest,  are  different  names  for  the  same 
thing.  When  material  has  to  be  made  interesting,  it  signifies 
that  as  presented,  it  lacks  connection  with  purposes  and  present 
power :  or  that  if  the  connection  be  there,  it  is  not  perceived. 
To  make  it  interesting  by  leading  one  to  realize  the  connection 
that  exists  is  simply  good  sense;  to  make  it  interesting  by 
extraneous  and  artificial  inducements  deserves  all  the  bad 
names  which  have  been  applied  to  the  doctrine  of  interest  in 
education. 

So  much  for  the  meaning  of  the  term  interest.  Now  for 
that  of  discipline.  Where  an  activity  takes  time,  where  many 
means  and  obstacles  lie  between  its  initiation  and  completion, 
deliberation  and  persistence  are  required.  It  is  obvious  that 
a  very  large  part  of  the  everyday  meaning  of  will  is  precisely  the 
deliberate  or  conscious  disposition  to  persist  and  endure  in  a 
planned  course  of  action  in  spite  of  difficulties  and  contrary 
solicitations.  A  man  of  strong  will,  in  the  popular  usage  of 
the  words,  is  a  man  who  is  neither  fickle  nor  half-hearted  in 
achieving  chosen  ends.  His  ability  is  executive;  that  is,  he 
persistently  and  energetically  strives  to  execute  or  carry  out 
his  aims.     A  weak  will  is  unstable  as  water. 

Clearly  there  are  two  factors  in  will.  One  has  to  do  with  the 
foresight  of  results,  the  other  with  the  depth  of  hold  the  fore- 
seen outcome  has  upon  the  person,  {i)  Obstinacy  is  persist- 
ence but  it  is  not  strength  of  volition.  Obstinacy  may  be 
mere  animal  inertia  and  insensitiveness,  A  man  keeps  on 
doing  a  thing  just  because  he  has  got  started,  not  because  of 
any  clearly  thought-out  purpose.  In  fact,  the  obstinate  man 
generally  declines  (although  he  may  not  be  quite  aware  of 
his  refusal)  to  make  clear  to  himself  what  his  proposed  end  is ; 
he  has  a  feeling  that  if  he  allowed  himself  to  get  a  clear  and  full 
idea  of  it,  it  might  not  be  worth  while.  Stubbornness  shows  it- 
self even  more  in  reluctance  to  criticize  ends  which  present  them- 
selves than  it  does  in  persistence  and  energy  in  use  of  means  to 
achieve  the  end.     The  really  executive  man  is  a  man  who 


Interest  and  Discipline  151 

ponders  his  ends,  who  makes  his  ideas  of  the  results  of  his  ac- 
tions as  clear  and  full  as  possible.  The  people  we  called 
weak-willed  or  self-indulgent  always  deceive  themselves  as 
to  the  consequences  of  their  acts.  They  pick  out  some  feature 
which  is  agreeable  and  neglect  all  attendant  circumstances. 
When  they  begin  to  act,  the  disagreeable  results  they  ignored 
begin  to  show  themselves.  They  are  discouraged,  or  complain 
of  being  thwarted  in  their  good  purpose  by  a  hard  fate,  and 
shift  to  some  other  Hne  of  action.  That  the  primary  difference 
between  strong  and  feeble  voHtion  is  intellectual,  consisting 
in  the  degree  of  persistent  firmness  and  fullness  with  which 
consequences  are  thought  out,  cannot  be  over-emphasized. 

{ii)  There  is,  of  course,  such  a  thing  as  a  speculative  tracing 
out  of  results.  Ends  are  then  foreseen,  but  they  do  not  lay 
deep  hold  of  a  person.  They  are  something  to  look  at  and 
for  curiosity  to  play  with  rather  than  something  to  achieve. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  over-intellectuaHty,  but  there  is  such 
a  thing  as  a  one-sided  intellectuaHty.  A  person  "  takes  it 
out  "  as  we  say  in  considering  the  consequences  of  proposed 
Hnes  of  action.  A  certain  fiabbiness  of  fiber  prevents  the  con- 
templated object  from  gripping  him  and  engaging  him  in 
action.  And  most  persons  are  naturally  diverted  from  a 
proposed  course  of  action  by  unusual,  unforeseen  obstacles,  or 
by  presentation  of  inducements  to  an  action  that  is  directly 
more  agreeable. 

A  person  who  is  trained  to  consider  his  actions,  to  undertake 
them  deliberately,  is  in  so  far  forth  discipHned.  Add  to  this 
abihty  a  power  to  endure  in  an  intelligently  chosen  course  in 
face  of  distraction,  confusion,  and  difficulty,  and  you  have  the 
essence  of  discipline.  DiscipHne  means  power  at  command ; 
mastery  of  the  resources  available  for  carrying  through  the 
action  undertaken.  To  know  what  one  is  to  do  and  to  move  to 
do  it  promptly  and  by  use  of  the  requisite  means  is  to  be  dis- 
ciplined, whether  we  are  thinking  of  an  army  or  a  mind. 
Discipline  is  positive.    To  cow  the  spirit,  to  subdue  inclina- 


152  Philosophy  of  Education 

tion,  to  compel  obedience,  to  mortify  the  flesh,  to  make  a 
subordinate  perform  an  uncongenial  task  —  these  things  are 
or  are  not  disciphnary  according  as  they  do  or  do  not  tend  to 
the  development  of  power  to  recognize  what  one  is  about  and 
to  persistence  in  accomplishment. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  press  the  point  that  interest  and 
discipline  are  connected,  not  opposed,  ii)  Even  the  more 
purely  intellectual  phase  of  trained  power  —  apprehension  of 
what  one  is  doing  as  exhibited  in  consequences  —  is  not  pos- 
sible without  interest.  DeHberation  will  be  perfimctory  and 
superficial  where  there  is  no  interest.  Parents  and  teachers 
often  complain  —  and  correctly  —  that  children  "  do  not 
want  to  hear,  or  want  to  understand."  Their  minds  are  not 
upon  the  subject  precisely  because  it  does  not  touch  them ;  it 
does  not  enter  into  their  concerns.  This  is  a  state  of  things 
that  needs  to  be  remedied,  but  the  remedy  is  not  in  the  use  of 
methods  which  increase  indifference  and  aversion.  Even 
punishing  a  child  for  inattention  is  one  way  of  trying  to  make 
him  realize  that  the  matter  is  not  a  thing  of  complete  unconcern ; 
it  is  one  way  of  arousing  "  interest,"  or  bringing  about  a  sense 
of  connection.  In  the  long  run,  its  value  is  measured  by 
whether  it  supplies  a  mere  physical  excitation  to  act  in  the 
way  desired  by  the  adult  or  whether  it  leads  the  child  "  to 
think  "  —  that  is,  to  reflect  upon  his  acts  and  impregnate 
them  with  aims,  {ii)  That  interest  is  requisite  for  executive 
persistence  is  even  more  obvious.  Employers  do  not  adver- 
tise for  workmen  who  are  not  interested  in  what  they  are  doing. 
If  one  were  engaging  a  lawyer  or  a  doctor,  it  would  never  occur 
to  one  to  reason  that  the  person  engaged  would  stick  to  his  work 
more  conscientiously  if  it  was  so  uncongenial  to  him  that  he 
did  it  merely  from  a  sense  of  obligation.  Interest  measures  — 
or  rather  is  —  the  depth  of  the  grip  which  the  foreseen  end 
has  upon  one  in  moving  one  to  act  for  its  realization. 

2.  The  Importance  of  the  Idea  of  Interest  in  Education.  — 
Interest  represents  the  moving  force  of  objects  —  whether 


Interest  and  Discipline  153 

perceived  or  presented  in  imagination  —  in  any  experience 
having  a  purpose.  In  the  concrete,  the  value  of  recognizing 
the  dynamic  place  of  interest  in  an  educative  development  is 
that  it  leads  to  considering  individual  children  in  their  specific 
capabilities,  needs,  and  preferences.  One  who  recognizes  the 
importance  of  interest  will  not  assume  that  all  minds  work 
in  the  same  way  because  they  happen  to  have  the  same  teacher 
and  textbook.  Attitudes  and  methods  of  approach  and 
response  vary  with  the  specific  appeal  the  same  material 
makes,  this  appeal  itself  varying  with  difference  of  natural 
aptitude,  of  past  experience,  of  plan  of  Hfe,  and  so  on.  But 
the  facts  of  interest  also  supply  considerations  of  general  value 
to  the  philosophy  of  education.  Rightly  understood,  they 
put  us  on  our  guard  against  certain  conceptions  of  mind  and 
of  subject  matter  which  have  had  great  vogue  in  philosophic 
thought  in  the  past,  and  which  exercise  a  serious  hamper- 
ing influence  upon  the  conduct  of  instruction  and  discipHne. 
Too  frequently  mind  is  set  over  the  world  of  things  and  facts 
to  be  known ;  it  is  regarded  as  something  existing  in  isolation, 
with  mental  states  and  operations  that  exist  independently. 
Knowledge  is  then  regarded  as  an  external  application  of 
purely  mental  existences  to  the  things  to  be  known,  or  else 
as  a  result  of  the  impressions  which  this  outside  subject  matter 
makes  on  mind,  or  as  a  combination  of  the  two.  Subject 
matter  is  then  regarded  as  something  complete  in  itself; 
it  is  just  something  to  be  learned  or  known,  either  by  the 
voluntary  application  of  mind  to  it  or  through  the  impressions 
it  makes  on  mind. 

The  facts  of  interest  show  that  these  conceptions  are  mythi- 
cal. Mind  appears  in  experience  as  ability  to  respond  to 
present  stimuli  on  the  basis  of  anticipation  of  future  possible 
consequences,  and  with  a  view  to  controlling  the  kind  of  conse- 
quences that  are  to  take  place.  The  things,  the  subject  matter 
known,  consist  of  whatever  is  recognized  as  having  a  bearing 
upon  the  anticipated  course  of  events,  whether  assisting  or 


154  Philosophy  of  Education 

retarding  it.  These  statements  are  too  formal  to  be  very  in- 
telligible.    An  illustration  may  clear  up  their  significance. 

You  are  engaged  in  a  certain  occupation,  say  writing  with 
a  typewriter.  If  you  are  an  expert,  your  formed  habits 
take  care  of  the  physical  movements  and  leave  your  thoughts 
free  to  consider  your  topic.  Suppose,  however,  you  are 
not  skilled,  or  that,  even  if  you  are,  the  machine  does  not  work 
well.  You  then  have  to  use  intelligence.  You  do  not  wish 
to  strike  the  keys  at  random  and  let  the  consequences  be 
what  they  may ;  you  wish  to  record  certain  words  in  a  given 
order  so  as  to  make  sense.  You  attend  to  the  keys,  to  what 
3'ou  have  written,  to  your  movements,  to  the  ribbon  or  the 
mechanism  of  the  machine.  Your  attention  is  not  distributed 
indifferently  and  miscellaneously  to  any  and  every  detail.  It 
is  centered  upon  whatever  has  a  bearing  upon  the  effective 
pursuit  of  your  occupation.  Your  look  is  ahead,  and  you 
are  concerned  to  note  the  existing  facts  because  and  in  so 
far  as  they  are  factors  in  the  achievement  of  the  result 
intended.  You  have  to  find  out  what  your  resources  are, 
what  conditions  are  at  command,  and  what  the  difficulties 
and  obstacles  are.  This  foresight  and  this  survey  with  refer- 
ence to  what  is  foreseen  constitute  mind.  Action  that  does 
not  involve  such  a  forecast  of  results  and  such  an  examination, 
of  means  and  hindrances  is  either  a  matter  of  habit  or  else 
it  is  blind.  In  neither  case  is  it  intelligent.  To  be  vague  and 
uncertain  as  to  what  is  intended  and  careless  in  observation  of 
conditions  of  its  realization  is  to  be,  in  that  degree,  stupid  or 
partially  intelligent. 

If  we  recur  to  the  case  where  mind  is  not  concerned  with  the 
physical  manipulation  of  the  instruments  but  with  what  one 
intends  to  write,  the  case  is  the  same.  There  is  an  activity  in 
process ;  one  is  taken  up  with  the  development  of  a  theme. 
Unless  one  writes  as  a  phonograph  talks,  this  means  intelli- 
gence ;  namely,  alertness  in  foreseeing  the  various  conclusions 
to  which  present  data  and  considerations  are  tending,  together 


Interest  and  Discipline  155 

with  continually  renewed  observation  and  recollection  to  get 
hold  of  the  subject  matter  which  bears  upon  the  conclusions 
to  be  reached.  The  whole  attitude  is  one  of  concern  with 
what  is  to  be,  and  with  what  is  so  far  as  the  latter  enters  into 
the  movement  towards  the  end.  Leave  out  the  direction 
which  depends  upon  foresight  of  possible  future  results,  and 
there  is  no  intelligence  in  present  behavior.  Let  there  be 
imaginative  forecast  but  no  attention  to  the  conditions  upon 
which  its  attainment  depends,  and  there  is  self-deception  or 
idle  dreaming  — ■  abortive  intelligence. 

If  this  illustration  is  typical,  mind  is  not  a  name  for  some- 
thing complete  by  itself ;  it  is  a  name  for  a  course  of  action 
in  so  far  as  that  is  intelligently  directed ;  in  so  far,  that  is 
to  say,  as  aims,  ends,  enter  into  it,  with  selection  of  means  to 
further  the  attainment  of  aims.  Intelligence  is  not  a  peculiar 
possession  which  a  person  owns;  but  a  person  is  intelligent 
in  so  far  as  the  activities  in  which  he  plays  a  part  have  the 
quahties  mentioned.  Nor  are  the  activities  in  which  a  person 
engages,  whether  intelUgently  or  not,  exclusive  properties  of 
himself ;  they  are  something  in  which  he  engages  and  partakes. 
Other  things,  the  independent  changes  of  other  things  and 
persons,  cooperate  and  hinder.  The  individual's  act  may  be 
initial  in  a  course  of  events,  but  the  outcome  depends  upon 
the  interaction  of  his  response  with  energies  supplied  by  other 
agencies.  Conceive  mind  as  anything  but  one  factor  partaking 
along  with  others  in  the  production  of  consequences,  and  it 
becomes  meaningless. 

The  problem  of  instruction  is  thus  that  of  finding  material 
which  will  engage  a  person  in  specific  activities  having  an 
arm  or  purpose  of  moment  or  interest  to  him,  and  dealing 
with  thipgs  not  as  gymnastic  appliances  but  as  conditioTis 
for  the  attainment  of  ends.  The  remedy  for  the  evils  attend- 
ing the  doctrine  of  formal  discipline  previnusly  spoken  of,  is 
not  to  be  found  by  substituting  a  doctrine  of  specialized  dis- 
ciplines, but  by  reforming  the  notion  of  mind  and  its  training. 


156  Philosophy  of  Education 

Discovery  of  typical  modes  of  activity,  whether  play  or  useful 
occupations,  in  which  individuals  are  concerned,  in  whose 
outcome  they  recognize  they  have  something  at  stake,  and 
which  cannot  be  carried  through  without  reflection  and  use 
of  judgment  to  select  material  of  observation  and  recollection, 
is  the  remedy.  In  short,  the  root  of  the  error  long  prevalent 
in  the  conception  of  training  of  mind  consists  in  leaving  out 
of  account  movements  of  things  to  future  results  in  which  an 
individual  shares,  and  in  the  direction  of  which  observation, 
imagination,  and  memory  are  enlisted.  It  consists  in  regard- 
ing mind  as  complete  in  itself,  ready  to  be  directly  applied 
to  a  present  material. 

In  historic  practice  the  error  has  cut  two  ways.  On  one 
hand,  it  has  screened  and  protected  traditional  studies  and 
methods  of  teaching  from  intelligent  criticism  and  needed 
revisions.  To  say  that  they  are  "  disciplinary  "  has  safe- 
guarded them  from  all  inquiry.  It  has  not  been  enough  to 
show  that  they  were  of  no  use  in  life  or  that  they  did  not  really 
contribute  to  the  cultivation  of  the  self.  That  they  were 
'  disciplinary '  stifled  every  question,  subdued  every  doubt, 
and  removed  the  subject  from  the  reahn  of  rational  discussion. 
By  its  nature,  the  allegation  could  not  be  checked  up.  Even 
ivhen  discipline  did  not  accrue  as  matter  of  fact,  when  the 
pupil  even  grew  in  laxity  of  application  and  lost  power  of  in- 
telligent self -direction,  the  fault  lay  with  him,  not  with  the 
study  or  the  methods  of  teaching.  His  failure  was  but  proof 
that  he  needed  more  discipline,  and  thus  afforded  a  reason  for 
retaining  the  old  methods.  The  responsibiUty  was  transferred 
from  the  educator  to  the  pupil  because  the  material  did  not 
have  to  meet  specific  tests ;  it  did  not  have  to  be  shown  that 
it  fulfilled  any  particular  need  or  served  any  specific  end.  It 
was  designed  to  discipline  in  general,  and  if  it  failed,  it  was 
because  the  individual  was  unwilling  to  be  disciplined. 

In  the  other  direction,  the  tendency  was  towards  a  negative 
conception  of  discipline,  instead  of  an  identification  of  it  with 


Interest  and  Discipline  157 

growth  in  constructive  power  of  achievement.  As  we  have 
already  seen,  will  means  an  attitude  towards  the  future,  to- 
wards the  production  of  possible  consequences,  an  attitude 
involving  eflfort  to  foresee  clearly  and  comprehensively  thf 
probable  results  of  ways  of  acting,  and  an  active  identification 
with  some  anticipated  consequences.  Identification  of  will,  or 
effort,  with  mere  strain,  results  when  a  mind  is  set  up,  endowed 
with  powers  that  are  only  to  be  appUed  to  existing  material. 
A  person  just  either  will  or  will  not  apply  himself  to  the  matter 
in  hand.  The  more  indifferent  the  subject  matter,  the  less 
concern  it  has  for  the  habits  and  preferences  of  the  individual, 
the  more  demand  there  is  for  an  effort  to  bring  the  mind  to 
bear  upon  it  —  and  hence  the  more  discipline  of  will.  Tc 
attend  to  material  because  there  is  something  to  be  done  in 
which  the  person  is  concerned  is  not  disciplinary  in  this  view  \ 
not  even  if  it  results  in  a  desirable  increase  of  constructive 
power.  Application  just  for  the  sake  of  application,  for  the 
sake  of  training,  is  alone  disciplinary.  This  is  more  likely 
to  occur  if  the  subject  matter  presented  is  imcongenial,  for 
then  there  is  no  motive  (so  it  is  supposed)  except  the  ac- 
knowledgment of  duty  or  the  value  of  discipline.  The  logical 
result  is  expressed  with  Hteral  truth  in  the  words  of  an  Amer- 
ican humorist :  "  It  makes  no  difference  what  you  teach  a  boy 
so  long  as  he  doesn't  like  it." 

The  counterpart  of  the  isolation  of  mind  from  activities 
dealing  with  objects  to  accomphsh  ends  is  isolation  of  the  suh 
ject  matter  to  be  learned.  In  the  traditional  schemes  of  educa- 
tion, subject  matter  means  so  much  material  to  be  studied. 
Various  branches  of  study  represent  so  many  independent 
branches,  each  having  its  principles  of  arrangement  complete 
within  itself.  History  is  one  such  group  of  facts;  algebra 
another;  geography  another,  and  so  on  till  we  have  run 
through  the  entire  curriculum.  Having  a  ready-made  exist- 
ence on  their  own  account,  their  relation  to  mind  is  exhausted 
in  what  they  furnish  it  to  acquire.     This  idea  corresponds  to 


158  Philosophy  of  Education 

the  conventional  practice  in  which  the  program  of  school  work, 
for  the  day,  month,  and  successive  years,  consists  of  "  studies  " 
all  marked  off  from  one  another,  and  each  supposed  to  be  com- 
plete by  itself  —  for  educational  purposes  at  least. 

Later  on  a  chapter  is  devoted  to  the  special  consideration  of 
the  meaning  of  the  subject  matter  of  instruction.  At  this 
point,  we  need  only  to  say  that,  in  contrast  with  the  traditional 
theory,  anything  which  intelligence  studies  represents  things 
in  the  part  which  they  play  in  the  carrying  forward  of  active 
lines  of  interest.  Just  as  one  "  studies  "  his  typewriter  as 
part  of  the  operation  of  putting  it  to  use  to  effect  results,  so 
with  any  fact  or  truth.  It  becomes  an  object  of  study  — 
that  is,  of  inquiry  and  reflection  —  when  it  figures  as  a  factor 
to  be  reckoned  with  in  the  completion  of  a  course  of  events 
in  which  one  is  engaged  and  by  whose  outcome  one  is  affected. 
Numbers  are  not  objects  of  study  just  because  they  are  num- 
bers already  constituting  a  branch  of  learning  called  mathe- 
matics, but  because  they  represent  qualities  and  relations  of 
the  world  in  which  our  action  goes  on,  because  they  are  fac- 
tors upon  which  the  accompHshment  of  our  purposes  depends. 
Stated  thus  broadly,  the  formula  may  appear  abstract. 
Translated  into  details,  it  means  that  the  act  of  learning  or 
studying  is  artificial  and  ineffective  in  the  degree  in  which 
pupils  are  merely  presented  with  a  lesson  to  be  learned. 
Study  is  effectual  in  the  degree  in  which  the  pupil  realizes  the 
place  of  the  numerical  truth  he  is  dealing  with  in  carrying  to 
fruition  activities  in  which  he  is  concerned.  This  connection 
of  an  object  and  a  topic  with  the  promotion  of  an  activity 
having  a  purpose  is  the  first  and  the  last  word  of  a  genuine 
theory  of  interest  in  education. 

3.  Some  Social  Aspects  of  the  Question.  —  While  the 
theoretical  errors  of  which  we  have  been  speaking  have  their 
expressions  in  the  conduct  of  schools,  they  are  themselves  the 
outcome  of  conditions  of  social  life.  A  change  confined  to 
the  theoretical  conviction  of  educators  will  not  remove  the 


Interest  and  Discipline  159 

difficulties,  though  it  should  render  more  effective  efforts 
to  modify  social  conditions.  Men's  fundamental  attitudes 
toward  the  world  are  fixed  by  the  scope  and  qualities  of  the 
activities  in  which  they  partake.  The  ideal  of  interest  is 
exempHfied  in  the  artistic  attitude.  Art  is  neither  merely 
internal  nor  merely  external,  merely  mental  nor  merely 
physical.  Like  every  mode  of  action,  it  brings  about  changes 
in  the  world.  The  changes  made  by  some  actions  (those  which 
by  contrast  may  be  called  mechanical)  are  external ;  they  are 
just  shifting  things  about.  No  ideal  reward,  no  enrichment 
of  emotion  and  intellect,  accompanies  them.  Others  contrib- 
ute to  the  maintenance  of  Hfe,  and  to  its  external  adornment 
and  display.  Many  of  our  existing  social  activities,  industrial 
and  political,  fall  in  these  two  classes.  Neither  the  people 
who  engage  in  them,  nor  those  who  are  directly  affected  by 
them,  are  capable  of  full  and  free  interest  in  their  work. 
Because  of  the  lack  of  any  purpose  in  the  work  for  the  one 
doing  it,  or  because  of  the  restricted  character  of  its  aim,  in- 
telligence is  not  adequately  engaged.  The  same  conditions 
force  many  people  back  upon  themselves.  They  take  refuge 
in  an  inner  play  of  sentiment  and  fancies.  They  are  aesthetic 
but  not  artistic,  since  their  feelings  and  ideas  are  turned  upon 
themselves,  instead  of  being  methods  in  acts  which  modify  con- 
ditions. Their  mental  life  is  sentimental;  an  enjoyment  of 
an  inner  landscape.  Even  the  pursuit  of  science  may  become 
an  asylum  of  refuge  from  the  hard  conditions  of  Uf e  —  not  a 
temporary  retreat  for  the  sake  of  recuperation  and  clarifica- 
tion in  future  dealings  with  the  world.  The  very  word  art 
may  become  associated  not  with  specific  transformation  of 
things,  making  them  more  significant  for  mind,  but  with  stimu- 
lations of  eccentric  fancy  and  with  emotional  indulgences. 
The  separation  and  mutual  contempt  of  the  "  practical  "  man 
and  the  man  of  theory  or  culture,  the  divorce  of  fine  and  in- 
dustrial arts,  are  indications  of  this  situation.  Thus  interest 
and  mind  are  either  narrowed,  or  else  made  perverse.     Compare 


£6o  Philosophy  of  Education 

what  was  said  in  an  earlier  chapter  about  the  one-sided  mean- 
ings which  have  come  to  attach  to  the  ideas  of  efficiency  and 
of  culture. 

This  state  of  affairs  must  exist  so  far  as  society  is  organized 
on  a  basis  of  division  between  laboring  classes  and  leisure 
classes.  The  intelligence  of  those  who  do  things  becomes 
hard  in  the  unremitting  struggle  with  things;  that  of  those 
freed  from  the  discipline  of  occupation  becomes  luxurious  and 
effeminate.  Moreover,  the  majority  of  human  beings  still  lack 
economic  freedom.  Their  pursuits  are  fixed  by  accident  and 
necessity  of  circumstance ;  they  are  not  the  normal  expression 
of  their  own  powers  interacting  with  the  needs  and  resources 
of  the  environment.  Our  economic  conditions  still  relegate 
many  men  to  a  servile  status.  As  a  consequence,  the  intelli- 
gence of  those  in  control  of  the  practical  situation  is  not  liberal. 
Instead  of  playing  freely  upon  the  subjugation  of  the  world  for 
human  ends,  it  is  devoted  to  the  manipulation  of  other  men 
for  ends  that  are  non-human  in  so  far  as  they  are  exclusive. 

This  state  of  affairs  explains  many  things  in  our  historic 
educational  traditions.  It  throws  light  upon  the  clash  of 
aims  manifested  in  different  portions  of  the  school  system; 
the  narrowly  utilitarian  character  of  most  elementary  educa- 
tion, and  the  narrowly  disciplinary  or  cultural  character  of 
most  higher  education.  It  accounts  for  the  tendency  to  isolate 
intellectual  matters  till  knowledge  is  scholastic,  academic,  and 
professionally  technical,  and  for  the  widespread  conviction 
that  liberal  education  is  opposed  to  the  requirements  of  an 
education  which  shall  count  in  the  vocations  of  life. 

But  it  also  helps  define  the  peculiar  problem  of  present  edu- 
cation. The  school  cannot  immediately  escape  from  the  ideals 
set  by  prior  social  conditions.  But  it  should  contribute 
through  the  type  of  intellectual  and  emotional  disposition 
which  it  forms  to  the  improvement  of  those  conditions.  And 
just  here  the  true  conceptions  of  interest  and  discipline  are  full 
of  significance.     Persons  whose  interests  have  been  enlarged 


Interest  and  Discipline  i6i 

and  mtelligence  trained  by  dealing  with  things  and  facts  in 
active  occupations  having  a  purpose  (whether  in  play  or  work) 
will  be  those  most  likely  to  escape  the  alternatives  of  an 
academic  and  aloof  knowledge  and  a  hard,  narrow,  and  merely 
"  practical  "  practice.  To  organize  education  so  that  natural 
active  tendencies  shall  be  fully  enlisted  in  doing  something, 
while  seeing  to  it  that  the  doing  requires  observation,  the  ac- 
quisition of  information,  and  the  use  of  a  constructive  imagina- 
tion, is  what  most  needs  to  be  done  to  improve  social  condi- 
tions. To  oscillate  between  drill  exercises  that  strive  to 
attain  eflSciency  in  outward  doing  without  the  use  of  intelli- 
gence, and  an  accumulation  of  knowledge  that  is  supposed  to 
be  an  ultimate  end  in  itself,  means  that  education  accepts  the 
present  social  conditions  as  final,  and  thereby  takes  upon 
itself  the  responsibility  for  perpetuating  them.  A  reorganiza- 
tion of  education  so  that  learning  takes  place  in  connection 
with  the  intelligent  carrying  forward  of  purposeful  activities 
is  a  slow  work.  It  can  only  be  accomplished  piecemeal, 
a  step  at  a  time.  But  this  is  not  a  reason  for  nominally 
accepting  one  educational  philosophy  and  accommodating 
ourselves  in  practice  to  another.  It  is  a  challenge  to  under- 
take the  task  of  reorganization  courageously  and  to  keep  at 
it  persistently. 

Summary.  —  Interest  and  discipline  are  correlative  aspects 
of  activity  having  an  aim.  Interest  means  that  one  is  identi- 
fied with  the  objects  which  define  the  activity  and  which  fur- 
nish the  means  and  obstacles  to  its  realization.  Any  activity 
with  an  aim  implies  a  distinction  between  an  earlier  incomplete 
phase  and  later  completing  phase;  it  implies  also  inter- 
mediate steps.  To  have  an  interest  is  to  take  things  as  entering 
into  such  a  continuously  developing  situation,  instead  of 
taking  them  in  isolation.  The  time  difference  between  the 
given  incomplete  state  of  affairs  and  the  desired  fulfillment 
exacts  effort  in  transformation;  it  demands  continuity  of 
attention  and  endurance.    This  attitude  is  what  is  practically 


1 62  Philosophy  of  Education 

meant  by  will.     Discipline  or  development  of  power  of  con- 
tinuous attention  is  its  fruit. 

The  significance  of  this  doctrine  for  the  theory  of  education 
is  twofold.  On  the  one  hand  it  protects  us  from  the  notion 
that  mind  and  mental  states  are  something  complete  in  them- 
selves, which  then  happen  to  be  appKed  to  some  ready-made 
objects  and  topics  so  that  knowledge  results.  It  shows  that 
mind  and  intelligent  or  purposeful  engagement  in  a  course  of 
action  into  which  things  enter  are  identical.  Hence  to  develop 
and  train  mind  is  to  provide  an  environment  which  induces 
such  activity.  On  the  other  side,  it  protects  us  from  the  notion 
that  subject  matter  on  its  side  is  something  isolated  and  in- 
dependent. It  shows  that  subject  matter  of  learning  is 
identical  with  all  the  objects,  ideas,  and  principles  which 
enter  as  resources  or  obstacles  into  the  continuous  intentional 
pursuit  of  a  course  of  action.  The  developing  course  of  action, 
whose  end  and  conditions  are  perceived,  is  the  unity  which 
holds  together  what  are  often  divided  into  an  independent 
mind  on  one  side  and  an  independent  world  of  objects  and 
facts  on  the  other. 


CHAPTER  XI 


EXPERIENCE  AND  THINKING 


1.  The  Nature  of  Experience.  —  The  nature  of  experience 
can  be  understood  only  by  noting  that  it  includes  an  active 
and  a  passive  element  peculiariy  combined.  On  the  active 
hand,  experience  is  trying  —  a  meaning  which  is  made  exphcit 
in  the  connected  term  experiment.  On  the  passive,  it  is  under- 
going. When  we  experience  something  we  act  upon  it,  we  do 
something  with  it ;  then  we  suffer  or  undergo  the  consequences. 
We  do  something  to  the  thing  and  then  it  does  something  to 
us  in  return :  such  is  the  peculiar  combination.  The  connec- 
tion of  these  two  phases  of  experience  measures  the  fruitful- 
ness  or  value  of  the  experience.  Mere  activity  does  not 
constitute  experience.  It  is  dispersive,  centrifugal,  dissipat- 
ing. Experience  as  trying  involves  change,  but  change 
is  meaningless  transition  unless  it  is  consciously  connected 
with  the  return  wave  of  consequences  which  flow  from 
it.  When  an  activity  is  continued  into  the  undergoing  of 
consequences,  when  the  change  made  by  action  is  reflected 
back  into  a  change  made  in  us,  the  mere  flux  is  loaded  with 
significance.  We  learn  something.  It  is  not  experience 
when  a  child  merely  sticks  his  finger  into  a  flame;  it  is  ex- 
perience when  the  movement  is  connected  with  the  pain  which 
he  undergoes  in  consequence.  Henceforth  the  sticking  of 
the  finger  into  flame  means  a  burn.  Being  burned  is  a  mere 
physical  change,  like  the  burning  of  a  stick  of  wood,  if  it 
is  not  perceived  as  a  consequence  of  some  other  action. 

Blind  and  capricious  impulses  hurry  us  on  heedlessly  from 
one  thing  to  another.     So  far  as  this  happens,  everything  is 

163 


164  Philosophy  of  Education 

writ  in  water.  There  is  none  of  that  cumulative  growth  which 
makes  an  experience  in  any  vital  sense  of  that  term.  On 
the  other  hand,  many  things  happen  to  us  in  the  way  of  pleas- 
ure and  pain  which  we  do  not  connect  with  any  prior  activity 
of  our  own.  They  are  mere  accidents  so  far  as  we  are  con- 
cerned. There  is  no  before  or  after  to  such  experience ;  no  ret- 
rospect nor  outlook,  and  consequently  no  meaning.  We 
get  nothing  which  may  be  carried  over  to  foresee  what  is 
likely  to  happen  next,  and  no  gain  in  abiHty  to  adjust  ourselves 
to  what  is  coming  —  no  added  control.  Only  by  courtesy 
can  such  an  experience  be  called  experience.  To  "  learn  from 
experience  "  is  to  make  a  backward  and  forward  connection 
between  what  we  do  to  things  and  what  we  enjoy  or  suffer 
from  things  in  consequence.  Under  such  conditions,  doing 
becomes  a  trying ;  an  experiment  with  the  world  to  find  out 
what  it  is  like ;  the  undergoing  becomes  instruction  —  dis- 
covery of  the  connection  of  things. 

Two  conclusions  important  for  education  follow,  (i)  Ex- 
perience is  primarily  an  active-passive  affair;  it  is  not  pri- 
marily cognitive.  But  (2)  the  measure  of  the  value  of  an  ex- 
perience Hes  in  the  perception  of  relationships  or  continuities 
to  which  it  leads  up.  It  includes  cognition  in  the  degree  in 
which  it  is  cumulative  or  amounts  to  something,  or  has  mean- 
ing. In  schools,  those  under  instruction  are  too  customarily 
looked  upon  as  acquiring  knowledge  as  theoretical  specta- 
tors, minds  which  appropriate  knowledge  by  direct  energy 
of  intellect.  The  very  word  pupil  has  almost  come  to  mean 
one  who  is  engaged  not  in  having  fruitful  experiences  but 
in  absorbing  knowledge  directly.  Something  which  is  called 
mind  or  consciousness  is  severed  from  the  physical  organs  of 
activity.  The  former  is  then  thought  to  be  purely  intellectual 
and  cognitive;  the  latter  to  be  an  irrelevant  and  intruding 
physical  factor.  The  intimate  union  of  activity  and  under- 
going its  consequences  which  leads  to  recognition  of  meaning 
is  broken ;  instead  we  have  two  fragments :  mere  bodily  action 


Experience  and  Thinking  165 

on  one  side,  and  meaning  directly  grasped  by  *  spiritual ' 
activity  on  the  other. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  state  adequately  the  evil  results 
which  have  flowed  from  this  duaUsm  of  mind  and  body,  much 
less  to  exaggerate  them.  Some  of  the  more  striking  effects, 
may,  however,  be  enumerated,  (a)  In  part  bodily  activity 
becomes  an  intruder.  Having  nothing,  so  it  is  thought,  to 
do  with  mental  activity,  it  becomes  a  distraction,  an  evil  to 
be  contended  with.  For  the  pupil  has  a  body,  and  brings  it 
to  school  along  with  his  mind.  And  the  body  is,  of  necessity, 
a  wellspring  of  energy ;  it  has  to  do  something.  But  its  activ- 
ities, not  being  utiHzed  in  occupation  with  things  which  yield 
significant  results,  have  to  be  frowned  upon.  They  lead 
the  pupil  away  from  the  lesson  with  which  his  *  mind  '  ought 
to  be  occupied;  they  are  sources  of  mischief.  The  chief 
source  of  the  '  problem  of  discipline '  in  schools  is  that 
the  teacher  has  often  to  spend  the  larger  part  of  the  time  in 
suppressing  the  bodily  activities  which  take  the  mind  away 
from  its  material.  A  premium  is  put  on  physical  quietude ; 
on  silence,  on  rigid  uniformity  of  posture  and  movement; 
upon  a  machine-like  simulation  of  the  attitudes  of  intelligent 
interest.  The  teachers'  business  is  to  hold  the  pupils  up  to 
these  requirements  and  to  punish  the  inevitable  deviations 
which  occur. 

The  nervous  strain  and  fatigue  which  result  with  both  teacher 
and  pupil  are  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  abnormality  of 
the  situation  in  which  bodily  activity  is  divorced  from  the 
perception  of  meaning.  Callous  indifference  and  explosions 
from  strain  alternate.  The  neglected  body,  having  no  organ- 
ized fruitful  channels  of  activity,  breaks  forth,  without  knowing 
why  or  how,  into  meaningless  boisterousness,  or  settles  into 
equally  meaningless  fooling  —  both  very  different  from  the 
normal  play  of  children.  Physically  active  children  become 
restless  and  unruly ;  the  more  quiescent,  so-called  conscientious 
ones  spend  what  energy  they  have  in  the  negative  task  of 


1 66  Philosophy  of  Education 

keeping  their  instincts  and  active  tendencies  suppressed,  in- 
stead of  in  a  positive  one  of  constructive  planning  and  execu- 
tion; they  are  thus  educated  not  into  responsibility  for  the 
significant  and  graceful  use  of  bodily  powers,  but  into  an  en- 
forced duty  not  to  give  them  free  play.  It  may  be  seriously 
asserted  that  a  chief  cause  for  the  remarkable  achievements  of 
Greek  education  was  that  it  was  never  misled  by  false  notion? 
'into  an  attempted  separation  of  mind  and  body. 

(Z»)  Even,  however,  with  respect  to  the  lessons  which  have 
to  be  learned  by  the  appUcation  of  '  mind,'  some  bodily 
activities  have  to  be  used.  The  senses  —  especially  the  eye 
and  ear  —  have  to  be  employed  to  take  in  what  the  book, 
the  map,  the  blackboard,  and  the  teacher  say.  The  lips  and 
vocal  organs,  and  the  hands,  have  to  be  used  to  reproduce 
in  speech  and  writing  what  has  been  stowed  away.  The  senses 
are  then  regarded  as  a  kind  of  mysterious  conduit  through 
which  information  is  conducted  from  the  external  world  into 
the  mind ;  they  are  spoken  of  as  gateways  and  avenues  of 
knowledge.  To  keep  the  eyes  on  the  book  and  the  ears  open 
to  the  teacher's  words  is  a  mysterious  source  of  intellectual 
grace.  Moreover,  reading,  writing,  and  figuring  —  important 
school  arts  —  demand  muscular  or  motor  training.  The 
muscles  of  eye,  hand,  and  vocal  organs  accordingly  have  to 
be  trained  to  act  as  pipes  for  carrying  knowledge  back  out  of 
the  mind  into  external  action.  For  it  happens  that  using 
the  muscles  repeatedly  in  the  same  way  fixes  in  them  an 
automatic  tendency  to  repeat. 

The  obvious  result  is  a  mechanical  use  of  the  bodily  activities 
which  (in  spite  of  the  generally  obtrusive  and  interfering 
character  of  the  body  in  mental  action)  have  to  be  employed 
more  or  less.  For  the  senses  and  muscles  are  used  not  as 
organic  participants  in  having  an  instructive  experience,  but 
as  external  inlets  and  outlets  of  mind.  Before  the  child 
goes  to  school,  he  learns  with  his  hand,  eye,  and  ear,  because 
they  are  organs  of  the  process  of  doing  something  from  which 


Experience  and  Thinking  167 

meaning  results.  The  boy  flying  a  kite  has  to  keep  his  eye 
on  the  kite,  and  has  to  note  the  various  pressures  of  the  string 
on  his  hand.  His  senses  are  avenues  of  knowledge  not  be- 
cause external  facts  are  somehow  *  conveyed  '  to  the  brain, 
but  because  they  are  used  in  doing  something  with  a  pur- 
pose. The  qualities  of  seen  and  touched  things  have  a  bearing 
on  what  is  done,  and  are  alertly  perceived;  they  have  a 
meaning.  But  when  pupils  are  expected  to  use  their  eyes  to 
note  the  form  of  words,  irrespective  of  their  meaning,  in  order 
to  reproduce  them  in  spelling  or  reading,  the  resulting 
training  is  simply  of  isolated  sense  organs  and  muscles. 
It  is  such  isolation  of  an  act  from  a  purpose  which  makes 
it  mechanical.  It  is  customary  for  teachers  to  urge  children 
to  read  with  expression,  so  as  to  bring  out  the  meaning. 
But  if  they  originally  learned  the  sensory-motor  technique 
of  reading  —  the  abiUty  to  identify  forms  and  to  reproduce 
the  sounds  they  stand  for  —  by  methods  which  did  not  call 
(or  attention  to  meaning,  a  mechanical  habit  was  established 
which  makes  it  difficult  to  read  subsequently  with  intelli- 
gence. The  vocal  organs  have  been  trained  to  go  their  own 
way  automatically  in  isolation ;  and  meaning  cannot  be 
tied  on  at  will.  Drawing,  singing,  and  writing  may  be 
taught  in  the  same  mechanical  way;  for,  we  repeat,  any 
way  is  mechanical  which  narrows  down  the  bodily  activity 
so  that  a  separation  of  body  from  mind  —  that  is,  from 
recognition  of  meaning  —  is  set  up.  Mathematics,  even  in 
its  higher  branches,  when  undue  emphasis  is  put  upon 
the  technique  of  calculation,  and  science,  when  laboratory 
exercises  are  given  for  their  own  sake,  suffer  from  the  same 
evil. 

(c)  On  the  intellectual  side,  the  separation  of  *  mind ' 
from  direct  occupation  with  things  throws  emphasis  on 
things  at  the  expense  of  relations  or  connections.  It  is  al- 
together too  common  to  separate  perceptions  and  even  ideas 
from  judgments.     The  latter  are  thought  to  come  after  the 


1 68  Philosophy  o]  Education 

former  in  order  to  compare  them.  It  is  alleged  that  the  mind 
perceives  things  apart  from  relations ;  that  it  forms  ideas  of 
them  in  isolation  from  their  connections  —  with  what  goes 
before  and  comes  after.  Then  judgment  or  thought  is  called 
upon  to  combine  the  separated  items  of  '  knowledge  '  so  that 
their  resemblance  or  casual  connection  shall  be  brought  out. 
As  matter  of  fact,  every  perception  and  every  idea  is  a  sense 
of  the  bearings,  use,  and  cause,  of  a  thing.  We  do  not  really 
know  a  chair  or  have  an  idea  of  it  by  inventorying  and  enumer- 
ating its  various  isolated  qualities,  but  only  by  bringing  these 
qualities  into  connection  with  something  else  —  the  purpose 
which  makes  it  a  chair  and  not  a  table ;  or  its  difference  from 
the  kind  of  chair  we  are  accustomed  to,  or  the  *  period  '  which 
it  represents,  and  so  on.  A  wagon  is  not  perceived  when 
all  its  parts  are  summed  up ;  it  is  the  characteristic  connection 
of  the  parts  which  makes  it  a  wagon.  And  these  connections 
are  not  those  of  mere  physical  juxtaposition ;  they  involve 
connection  with  the  animals  that  draw  it,  the  things  that  are 
carried  on  it,  and  so  on.  Judgment  is  employed  in  the  percep- 
tion ;  otherwise  the  perception  is  mere  sensory  excitation  or 
else  a  recognition  of  the  result  of  a  prior  judgment,  as  in  the 
case  of  familiar  objects. 

Words,  the  counters  for  ideas,  are,  however,  easily  taken  for 
ideas.  And  in  just  the  degree  in  which  mental  activity  is 
separated  from  active  concern  with  the  world,  from  doing 
something  and  connecting  the  doing  with  what  is  undergone, 
words,  symbols,  come  to  take  the  place  of  ideas.  The  sub- 
stitution is  the  more  subtle  because  some  meaning  is  recognized. 
But  we  are  very  easily  trained  to  be  content  with  a  minimum 
of  meaning,  and  to  fail  to  note  how  restricted  is  our  per- 
ception of  the  relations  which  confer  significance.  We  get  so 
thoroughly  used  to  a  kind  of  pseudo-idea,  a  half  perception, 
that  we  are  not  aware  how  half-dead  our  mental  action  is, 
and  how  much  keener  and  more  extensive  our  observations 
and  ideas  would  be  if  we  formed  them  under  conditions  of  a 


Experience  and  Thinking  i6g 

vital  experience  which  required  us  to  use  judgment :  to  hunt 
for  the  connections  of  the  thing  dealt  with. 

There  is  no  difference  of  opinion  as  to  the  theory  of  the 
matter.  All  authorities  agree  that  that  discernment  of  re- 
lationships is  the  genuinely  intellectual  matter;  hence,  the 
educative  matter.  The  failure  arises  in  supposing  that  re- 
lationships can  become  perceptible  without  experience  — 
without  that  conjoint  trying  and  undergoing  of  which  we  have 
spoken.  It  is  assumed  that  *  mind  '  can  grasp  them  if  it 
will  only  give  attention,  and  that  this  attention  may  be  given 
at  will  irrespective  of  the  situation.  Hence  the  deluge  of 
haK-observations,  of  verbal  ideas,  and  unassimilated  *  knowl- 
edge '  which  afflicts  the  world.  An  ounce  of  experience  is 
better  than  a  ton  of  theory  simply  because  it  is  only  in  ex- 
perience that  any  theory  has  vital  and  verifiable  significance. 
An  experience,  a  very  humble  experience,  is  capable  of  generat- 
ing and  carrying  any  amount  of  theory  (or  intellectual  content), 
but  a  theory  apart  from  an  experience  cannot  be  definitely 
grasped  even  as  theory.  It  tends  to  become  a  mere  verbal 
formula,  a  set  of  catchwords  used  to  render  thinking,  or  gen- 
uine theorizing,  imnecessary  and  impossible.  Because  of 
our  education  we  use  words,  thinking  they  are  ideas,  to  dispose 
of  questions,  the  disposal  being  in  reality  simply  such  an  ob- 
scuring of  perception  as  prevents  us  from  seeing  any  longer 
the  difficulty. 

2.  Reflection  in  Experience.  —  Thought  or  reflection,  as 
we  have  already  seen  virtually  if  not  explicitly,  is  the  discern- 
ment of  the  relation  between  what  we  try  to  do  and  what 
happens  in  consequence.  No  experience  having  a  meaning  is 
possible  without  some  element  of  thought.  But  we  may  con- 
trast two  types  of  experience  according  to  the  proportion  of  re- 
flection found  in  them.  All  our  experiences  have  a  phase  of 
*  cut  and  try  '  in  them  —  what  psychologists  call  the  method 
of  trial  and  error.  We  simply  do  something,  and  when  it 
fails,  we  do  something  else,  and  keep  on  trying  till  we  hit  upon 


I 


170  Philosophy  of  Education 

something  which  works,  and  then  we  adopt  that  method  as  a 
rule  of  thumb  measure  in  subsequent  procedure.  Some  ex- 
periences have  very  little  else  in  them  than  this  hit  and  miss 
or  succeed  process.  We  see  that  a  certain  way  of  acting  and  a 
certain  consequence  are  connected,  but  we  do  not  see  how 
they  are.  We  do  not  see  the  details  of  the  connection;  the 
links  are  missing.  Our  discernment  is  very  gross.  In  other 
cases  we  push  our  observation  farther.  We  analyze  to  see 
just  what  lies  between  so  as  to  bind  together  cause  and  effect, 
activity  and  consequence.  This  extension  of  our  insight  makes 
foresight  more  accurate  and  comprehensive.  The  action  which 
rests  simply  upon  the  trial  and  error  method  is  at  the  mercy  of 
circumstances;  they  may  change  so  that  the  act  performed 
does  not  operate  in  the  way  it  was  expected  to.  But  if 
vire  know  in  detail  upon  what  the  result  depends,  we  can 
look  to  see  whether  the  required  conditions  are  there.  The 
method  extends  our  practical  control.  For  if  some  of  the 
conditions  are  missing,  we  may,  if  we  know  what  the  needed 
antecedents  for  an  effect  are,  set  to  work  to  supply  them ;  or, 
if  they  are  such  as  to  produce  undesirable  effects  as  well,  we 
may  eliminate  some  of  the  superfluous  causes  and  economize 
effort. 

In  discovery  of  the  detailed  connections  of  our  activities 
and  what  happens  in  consequence,  the  thought  implied  in 
cut  and  try  experience  is  made  explicit.  Its  quantity  increases 
so  that  its  proportionate  value  is  very  different.  Hence  the 
quality  of  the  experience  changes ;  the  change  is  so  significant 
that  we  may  call  this  type  of  experience  reflective  —  that  is, 
reflective  par  excellence.  The  deliberate  cultivation  of  this 
phase  of  thought  constitutes  thinking  as  a  distinctive  ex- 
perience. Thinking,  in  other  words,  is  the  intentional  en- 
deavor to  discover  specific  connections  between  something 
which  we  do  and  the  consequences  which  result,  so  that  the 
two  become  continuous.  Their  isolation,  and  consequently 
their  purely  arbitrary  going  together,  is  cancelled;  a  unified 


Experience  and  Thinking  171 

developing  situation  takes  its  place.  The  occurrence  is  now 
understood ;  it  is  explained ;  it  is  reasonable,  as  we  say,  that 
the  thing  should  happen  as  it  does. 

Thinking  is  thus  equivalent  to  an  explicit  rendering  of  the  in- 
telligent element  in  our  experience.  It  makes  it  possible  to  act 
with  an  end  in  view.  It  is  the  condition  of  our  having  aims. 
As  soon  as  an  infant  begins  to  expect  he  begins  to  use  some- 
thing which  is  now  going  on  as  a  sign  of  something  to  follow ; 
he  is,  in  however  simple  a  fashion,  judging.  For  he  takes  one 
thing  as  evidence  of  something  else,  and  so  recognizes  a  relation- 
ship. Any  future  development,  however  elaborate  it  may  be, 
is  only  an  extending  and  a  refining  of  this  simple  act  of  in- 
ference. All  that  the  wisest  man  can  do  is  to  observe  what 
is  ^oing  on  more  widely  and  more  minutely  and  then  select 
more  carefully  from  what  is  noted  just  those  factors  which 
point  to  something  to  happen.  The  opposites,  once  more, 
to  thoughtful  action  are  routine  and  capricious  behavior. 
The  former  accepts  what  has  been  customary  as  a  full  measure 
of  possibility  and  omits  to  take  into  account  the  connections 
of  the  particular  things  done.  The  latter  makes  the  momen- 
tary act  a  measure  of  value,  and  ignores  the  connections  of 
our  personal  action  with  the  energies  of  the  environment.  It 
says,  virtually,  '  things  are  to  be  just  as  I  happen  to  like  them 
at  this  instant,'  as  routine  says  in  effect  *  let  things  con- 
tinue just  as  I  have  found  them  in  the  past.'  Both  refuse  to 
acknowledge  responsibility  for  the  future  consequences  which 
flow  from  present  action.  Reflection  is  the  acceptance  of 
such  responsibility. 

The  starting  point  of  any  process  of  thinking  is  something 
going  on,  something  which  just  as  it  stands  is  incomplete  or 
unfulfilled.  Its  point,  its  meaning  hes  Hterally  in  what  it  is 
going  to  be,  in  how  it  is  going  to  turn  out.  As  this  is  written, 
the  world  is  filled  with  the  clang  of  contending  armies.  For 
an  active  participant  in  the  war,  it  is  clear  that  the  mo- 
mentous thing  is  the  issue,  the  future  consequences,  of  this 


172  Philosophy  of  Education 

and  that  happening.  He  is  identified,  for  the  time  at  least, 
with  the  issue;  his  fate  hangs  upon  the  course  things  are 
taking.  But  even  for  an  onlooker  in  a  neutral  country,  the 
significance  of  every  move  made,  of  every  advance  here  and 
retreat  there,  lies  in  what  it  portends.  To  think  upon  the 
news  as  it  comes  to  us  is  to  attempt  to  see  what  is  indicated 
as  probable  or  possible  regarding  an  outcome.  To  fill  our 
heads,  like  a  scrapbook,  with  this  and  that  item  as  a  finished 
and  done-for  thing,  is  not  to  think.  It  is  to  turn  ourselves 
into  a  piece  of  registering  apparatus.  To  consider  the  hearing 
of  the  occurrence  upon  what  may  be,  but  is  not  yet,  is  to 
think.  Nor  will  the  reflective  experience  be  different  in  kind 
if  we  substitute  distance  in  time  for  separation  in  space. 
Imagine  the  war  done  with,  and  a  future  historian  giving  an 
account  of  it.  The  episode  is,  by  assumption,  past.  But 
he  cannot  give  a  thoughtful  account  of  the  war  save  as  he 
preserves  the  time  sequence ;  the  meaning  of  each  occurrence, 
as  he  deals  with  it,  Hes  in  what  was  future  for  it,  though  not 
for  the  historian.  To  take  it  by  itself  as  a  complete  existence 
is  to  take  it  unreflectively. 

Reflection  also  implies  concern  with  the  issue  —  a  certain 
sympathetic  identification  of  our  own  destiny,  if  only  dramatic, 
with  the  outcome  of  the  course  of  events.  For  the  general 
in  the  war,  or  a  common  soldier,  or  a  citizen  of  one  of  the  con- 
tending nations,  the  stimulus  to  thinking  is  direct  and  urgent. 
For  neutrals,  it  is  indirect  and  dependent  upon  imagination. 
But  the  flagrant  partisanship  of  human  nature  is  evidence  of 
the  intensity  of  the  tendency  to  identify  ourselves  with  one 
possible  course  of  events,  and  to  reject  the  other  as  foreign.  If 
we  cannot  take  sides  in  overt  action,  and  throw  in  our  little 
weight  to  help  determine  the  final  balance,  we  take  sides 
emotionally  and  imaginatively.  We  desire  this  or  that  out' 
come.  One  wholly  indifferent  to  the  outcome  does  not  follow 
or  think  about  what  is  happening  at  all.  From  this  dep>end- 
ence  of  the  act  of  thinking  upon  a  sense  of  sharing  in  the 


Experience  and  Thinking  173 

consequences  of  what  goes  on,  flows  one  of  the  chief  paradoxes 
of  thought.  Born  in  partiality,  in  order  to  accomplish  its 
tasks  it  must  achieve  a  certain  detached  impartiality.  The 
general  who  allows  his  hopes  and  desires  to  affect  his  obser- 
vations and  interpretations  of  the  existing  situation  will 
surely  make  a  mistake  in  calculation.  While  hopes  and 
fears  may  be  the  chief  motive  for  a  thoughtful  following  of 
the  war  on  the  part  of  an  onlooker  in  a  neutral  country,  he 
too  will  think  ineffectively  in  the  degree  in  which  his  prefer- 
ences modify  the  stuff  of  his  observations  and  reasonings. 
There  is,  however,  no  incompatibihty  between  the  fact  that 
the  occasion  of  reflection  Hes  in  a  personal  sharing  in  what  is 
going  on  and  the  fact  that  the  value  of  the  reflection  lies  upon 
keeping  one's  seK  out  of  the  data.  The  almost  insurmountable 
difficulty  of  achieving  this  detachment  is  evidence  that  thinking 
originates  in  situations  where  the  course  of  thinking  is  an  actual 
part  of  the  course  of  events  and  is  designed  to  influence  the 
result.  Only  gradually  and  with  a  widening  of  the  area  of 
vision  through  a  growth  of  social  sympathies  does  thinking 
develop  to  include  what  lies  beyond  our  direct  interests :  a 
fact  of  great  significance  for  education. 

To  say  that  thinking  occurs  with  reference  to  situations 
which  are  still  going  on,  and  incomplete,  is  to  say  that 
thinking  occurs  when  things  are  imcertain  or  doubtful  or 
problematic.  Only  what  is  finished,  completed,  is  wholly 
assured.  Where  there  is  reflection  there  is  suspense.  The 
object  of  thinking  is  to  help  reach  a  conclusion,  to  project  a 
possible  termination  on  the  basis  of  what  is  already  given. 
Certain  other  facts  about  thinking  accompany  this  feature. 
Since  the  situation  in  which  thinking  occurs  is  a  doubtful  one, 
thinking  is  a  process  of  inquiry,  of  looking  into  things,  of 
investigating.  Acquiring  is  always  secondary,  and  instru- 
mental to  the  act  of  inquiring.  It  is  seeking,  a  quest,  for 
something  that  is  not  at  hand.  We  sometimes  talk  as  if 
"  original  research  "  were  a  peculiar  prerogative  of  scientists 


174  Philosophy  of  Education 

or  at  least  of  advanced  students.  But  all  thinking  is  research, 
and  all  research  is  native,  original,  with  him  who  carries  it 
on,  even  if  everybody  else  in  the  world  already  is  sure  of  what 
he  is  still  looking  for. 

It  also  follows  that  all  thinking  involves  a  risk.  Certainty 
cannot  be  guaranteed  in  advance.  The  invasion  of  the  un- 
known is  of  the  nature  of  an  adventure ;  we  cannot  be  sure 
in  advance.  The  conclusions  of  thinking,  till  confirmed  by 
the  event,  are,  accordingly,  more  or  less  tentative  or  hypo- 
thetical. Their  dogmatic  assertion  as  final  is  unwarranted, 
short  of  the  issue,  in  fact.  The  Greeks  acutely  raised  the 
question :  How  can  we  learn  ?  For  either  we  know  already 
what  we  are  after,  or  else  we  do  not  know.  In  neither  case 
is  learning  possible ;  on  the  first  alternative  because  we  know 
already ;  on  the  second,  because  we  do  not  know  what  to  look 
for,  nor  if,  by  chance,  we  find  it  can  we  tell  that  it  is  what  we 
were  after.  The  dilemma  makes  no  provision  for  coming  to 
know,  for  learning;  it  assumes  either  complete  knowledge 
or  complete  ignorance.  Nevertheless  the  twiUght  zone  of 
inquiry,  of  thinking,  exists.  The  possibility  of  hypothetical 
conclusions,  of  tentative  results,  is  the  fact  which  the  Greek 
dilemma  overlooked.  The  perplexities  of  the  situation  suggest 
certain  ways  out.  We  try  these  ways,  and  either  push  our 
way  out,  in  which  case  we  know  we  have  found  what  we  were 
looking  for,  or  the  situation  gets  darker  and  more  confused  — 
in  which  case,  we  know  we  are  still  ignorant.  Tentative 
means  trying  out,  feeling  one's  way  along  provisionally. 
Taken  by  itself,  the  Greek  argument  is  a  nice  piece  of  formal 
logic.  But  it  is  also  true  that  as  long  as  men  kept  a  sharp 
disjunction  between  knowledge  and  ignorance,  science  made 
only  slow  and  accidental  advance.  Systematic  advance  in  in- 
vention and  discovery  began  when  men  recognized  that  they 
could  utilize  doubt  for  purposes  of  inquiry  by  forming  con- 
jectures to  guide  action  in  tentative  explorations,  whose 
development  would  confirm,  refute,  or  modify  the  guiding  con- 


Experience  and  Thinking  175 

jecture.  While  the  Greeks  made  knowledge  more  than 
learning,  modern  science  makes  conserved  knowledge  only  a 
means  to  learning,  to  discovery. 

To  recur  to  our  illustration.  A  commanding  general  cannot 
base  his  actions  upon  either  absolute  certainty  or  absolute 
ignorance.  He  has  a  certain  amount  of  information  at  hand 
which  is,  we  will  assume,  reasonably  trustworthy.  He  then 
infers  certain  prospective  movements,  thus  assigning  meaning 
to  the  bare  facts  of  the  given  situation.  His  inference  is  more 
or  less  dubious  and  hypothetical.  But  he  acts  upon  it.  He 
develops  a  plan  of  procedure,  a  method  of  dealing  with  the 
situation.  The  consequences  which  directly  follow  from  his  act- 
ing this  way  rather  than  that  test  and  reveal  the  worth  of  his 
reflections.  What  he  already  knows  functions  and  has  value 
in  what  he  learns.  But  will  this  account  apply  in  the  case 
of  the  one  in  a  neutral  country  who  is  thoughtfully  following 
as  best  he  can  the  progress  of  events?  In  form,  yes,  though 
not  of  course  in  content.  It  is  self-evident  that  his  guesses 
about  the  future  indicated  by  present  facts,  guesses  by 
which  he  attempts  to  supply  meaning  to  a  multitude  of 
disconnected  data,  cannot  be  the  basis  of  a  method  which  shall 
take  effect  in  the  campaign.  That  is  not  his  problem.  But  in 
the  degree  in  which  he  is  actively  thinking,  and  not  merely 
passively  following  the  course  of  events,  his  tentative  inferences 
will  take  effect  in  a  method  of  procedure  appropriate  to  his 
situation.  He  will  anticipate  certain  future  moves,  and  will 
be  on  the  alert  to  see  whether  they  happen  or  not.  In  the 
degree  in  which  he  is  intellectually  concerned,  or  thoughtful, 
he  will  be  actively  on  the  lookout;  he  will  take  steps  which 
although  they  do  not  affect  the  campaign,  modify  in  some 
degree  his  subsequent  actions.  Otherwise  his  later  "  I  told 
you  so  "  has  no  intellectual  quality  at  all;  it  does  not  mark 
any  testing  or  verification  of  prior  thinking,  but  only  a  coin- 
cidence that  yields  emotional  satisfaction  —  and  includes  a 
large  factor  of  self-deception. 


176  Philosophy  of  Education 

The  case  is  comparable  to  that  of  an  astronomer  who  from 
given  data  has  been  led  to  foresee  (infer)  a  future  eclipse. 
No  matter  how  great  the  mathematical  probability,  the  in 
ference  is  hypothetical  —  a  matter  of  probabiHty.^  The 
hypothesis  as  to  the  date  and  position  of  the  anticipated  ecHpse 
becomes  the  material  of  forming  a  method  of  future  conduct. 
Apparatus  is  arranged;  possibly  an  expedition  is  made  to 
some  far  part  of  the  globe.  In  any  case,  some  active  steps 
are  taken  which  actually  change  some  physical  conditions. 
And  apart  from  such  steps  and  the  consequent  modification 
of  the  situation,  there  is  no  completion  of  the  act  of  thinking. 
It  remains  suspended.  Knowledge,  already  attained  knowl- 
edge, controls  thinking  and  makes  it  fruitful. 

So  much  for  the  general  features  of  a  reflective  experience. 
They  are  {i)  perplexity,  collusion,  doubt,  due  to  the  fact  that 
one  is  impUcated  in  an  incomplete  situation  whose  full 
character  is  not  yet  determined ;  {ii)  a  conjectural  anticipa- 
tion —  a  tentative  interpretation  of  the  given  elements,  at- 
tributing to  them  a  tendency  to  effect  certain  consequences; 
{Hi)  a  careful  survey  (examination,  inspection,  exploration, 
analysis)  of  all  attainable  consideration  which  will  define 
and  clarify  the  problem  in  hand ;  {iv)  a  consequent  elaboration 
of  the  tentative  hypothesis  to  make  it  more  precise  and  more 
consistent,  because  squaring  with  a  wider  range  of  facts*, 
iv)  taking  one  stand  upon  the  projected  hypothesis  as  a  plan 
of  action  which  is  applied  to  the  existing  state  of  affairs: 
doing  something  overtly  to  bring  about  the  anticipated  result, 
and  thereby  testing  the  h5^othesis.  It  is  the  extent  and  ac- 
curacy of  steps  three  and  four  which  mark  off  a  distinctive 
reflective  experience  from  one  on  the  trial  and  error  plane. 
They  make  thinking  itself  into  an  experience.     Nevertheless, 

1  It  is  most  important  for  the  practice  of  science  that  men  in  many  cases 
can  calculate  the  degree  of  probability  and  the  amount  of  probable  error  in- 
volved, but  that  does  not  alter  the  features  of  the  situation  as  described.  It 
refines  them. 


Experience  and  Thinking  177 

we  never  get  wholly  beyond  the  trial  and  error  situation. 
Our  most  elaborate  and  rationally  consistent  thought  has 
to  be  tried  in  the  world  and  thereby  tried  out.  And  since 
it  can  never  take  into  account  all  the  connections,  it  can  never 
cover  with  perfect  accuracy  all  the  consequences.  Yet  a 
thoughtful  survey  of  conditions  is  so  careful,  and  the  guessing 
at  results  so  controlled,  that  we  have  a  right  to  mark  off  the 
reflective  experience  from  the  grosser  trial  and  error  forms  of 
action. 

Summary.  —  In  determining  the  place  of  thinking  in  ex- 
perience we  first  noted  that  experience  involves  a  connection 
of  doing  or  trying  with  something  which  is  undergone  in 
consequence.  A  separation  of  the  active  doing  phase  from 
the  passive  undergoing  phase  destroys  the  vital  meaning 
of  an  experience.  Thinking  is  the  accurate  and  deUberate 
instituting  of  connections  between  what  is  done  and  its  con- 
sequences. It  notes  not  only  that  they  are  connected,  but 
the  details  of  the  connection.  It  makes  connecting  Hnks  ex- 
plicit in  the  form  of  relationships.  The  stimulus  to  thinking 
is  found  when  we  wish  to  determine  the  significance  of  some 
act,  performed  or  to  be  performed.  Then  we  anticipate  con- 
sequences. This  impUes  that  the  situation  as  it  stands  is, 
either  in  fact  or  to  us,  incomplete  and  hence  indeterminate. 
The  projection  of  consequences  means  a  proposed  or  tentative 
solution.  To  perfect  this  hypothesis,  existing  conditions 
have  to  be  carefully  scrutinized  and  the  implications  of  the  hy- 
pothesis developed — an  operation  called  reasoning.  Then  the 
suggested  solution  —  the  idea  or  theory  —  has  to  be  tested 
by  acting  upon  it.  If  it  brings  about  certain  consequences, 
certain  determinate  changes,  in  the  world,  it  is  accepted  as 
valid.  Otherwise  it  is  modified,  and  another  trial  made. 
Thinking  includes  all  of  these  steps,  —  the  sense  of  a  problem, 
the  observation  of  conditions,  the  formation  and  rational 
elaboration  of  a  suggested  conclusion,  and  the  active  ex- 
perimental testing.     While  all  thinking  results  in  knowledge, 


178  Philosophy  oj  Education 

ultimately  the  value  of  knowledge  is  subordinate  to  its  use 
in  thinking.  For  we  live  not  in  a  settled  and  finished  world, 
but  in  one  which  is  going  on,  and  where  our  main  task  is 
prospective,  and  where  retrospect  —  and  all  knowledge  as 
distinct  from  thought  is  retrospect  —  is  of  value  in  the 
solidity,  security,  and  fertility  it  affords  our  dealings  with  the 
future. 


CHAPTER  XII 


THINKING  IN  EDUCATION 


1.  The  Essentials  of  Method.  —  No  one  doubts,  theoreti- 
cally, the  importance  of  fostering  in  school  good  habits  of  think- 
ing. But  apart  from  the  fact  that  the  acknowledgment  is 
not  so  great  in  practice  as  in  theory,  there  is  not  adequate 
theoretical  recognition  that  all  which  the  school  can  or  need  do 
for  pupils,  so  far  as  their  minds  are  concerned  (that  is,  leaving 
out  certain  specialized  muscular  abilities),  is  to  develop  their 
abihty  to  think.  The  parceling  out  of  instruction  among 
various  ends  such  as  acquisition  of  skill  (in  reading,  spelling, 
writing,  drawing,  reciting) ;  acquiring  information  (in  history 
and  geography),  and  training  of  thinking  is  a  measure  of  the 
ineffective  way  in  which  we  accomplish  all  three.  Thinking 
which  is  not  connected  with  increase  of  efficiency  in  action, 
and  with  learning  more  about  ourselves  and  the  world  in 
which  we  live,  has  something  the  matter  with  it  just  as  thought 
(See  ante,  p.  172).  And  skill  obtained  apart  from  thinking  is 
not  connected  with  any  sense  of  the  purposes  for  which  it  is 
to  be  used.  It  consequently  leaves  a  man  at  the  mercy  of 
his  routine  habits  and  of  the  authoritative  control  of  others, 
who  know  what  they  are  about  and  who  are  not  especially 
scrupulous  as  to  their  means  of  achievement.  And  informa- 
tion severed  from  thoughtful  action  is  dead,  a  mind- 
crushing  load.  Since  it  simulates  knowledge  and  thereby 
develops  the  poison  of  conceit,  it  is  a  most  powerful  obstacle 
to  further  growth  in  the  grace  of  intelligence.  The  sole  direct 
path  to  enduring  improvement  in  the  methods  of  instruction 
and  learning  consists  in  centering  upon  the  conditions  which 

170 


i8o  Philosophy  of  Education 

exact,  promote,  and  test  thinking.  Thinking  is  the  method 
of  intelHgent  learning,  of  learning  that  employs  and  rewards 
mind.  We  speak,  legitimately  enough,  about  the  method  of 
thinking,  but  the  important  thing  to  bear  in  mind  about 
method  is  that  thinking  is  method,  the  method  of  intelligent 
experience  in  the  course  which  it  takes. 

I.  The  initial  stage  of  that  developing  experience  which 
is  called  thinking  is  experience.  This  remark  may  sound  like 
a  silly  truism.  It  ought  to  be  one;  but  unfortunately  it  is 
not.  On  the  contrary,  thinking  is  often  regarded  both  in 
philosophic  theory  and  in  educational  practice  as  something 
cut  off  from  experience,  and  capable  of  being  cultivated  in 
isolation.  In  fact,  the  inherent  limitations  of  experience  are 
often  urged  as  the  sufficient  ground  for  attention  to  thinking. 
Experience  is  then  thought  to  be  confined  to  the  senses  and 
appetites ;  to  a  mere  material  world,  while  thinking  proceeds 
from  a  higher  faculty  (of  reason),  and  is  occupied  with  spiritual 
or  at  least  Hterary  things.  So,  oftentimes,  a  sharp  distinction 
is  made  between  pure  mathematics  as  a  peculiarly  fit  subject 
matter  of  thought  (since  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  physical 
existences)  and  applied  mathematics,  which  has  utilitarian 
but  not  mental  value. 

Speaking  generally,  the  fundamental  fallacy  in  methods  of 
Instruction  lies  in  supposing  that  experience  on  the  part  of 
pupils  may  be  assumed.  What  is  here  insisted  upon  is  the 
necessity  of  an  actual  empirical  situation  as  the  initiating  phase 
of  thought.  Experience  is  here  taken  as  previously  defined : 
trying  to  do  something  and  having  the  thing  perceptibly  do 
something  to  one  in  return.  The  fallacy  consists  in  supposing 
that  we  can  begin  with  read;  ^-made  subject  matter  of  arithmetic, 
or  geography,  or  whatever,  irrespective  of  some  direct  personal 
experience  of  a  situation.  Even  the  kindergarten  and  Mon- 
tessori  techniques  are  so  anxious  to  get  at  intellectual  distinc- 
tions, without  *  waste  of  time,'  that  they  tend  to  ignore  —  or 
reduce  —  the    immediate    crude    handling    of    the    feimiliar 


Thinking  in  Education  i8i 

material  of  experience,  and  to  introduce  pupils  at  once  to 
material  which  expresses  the  intellectual  distinctions  which 
adults  have  made.  But  the  first  stage  of  contact  with  any 
new  material,  at  whatever  age  of  maturity,  must  inevitably 
be  of  the  trial  and  error  sort.  An  individual  must  actually 
:ry,  in  play  or  work,  to  do  something  with  material  in  earring 
out  his  own  impulsive  activity,  and  then  note  the  interaction 
of  his  energy  and  that  of  the  material  employed.  This  is 
what  happens  when  a  child  at  first  begins  to  build  with 
blocks,  and  it  is  equally  what  happens  when  a  scientific 
man  in  his  laboratory  begins  to  experiment  with  unfamiliar 
objects. 

Hence  the  first  approach  to  any  subject  in  school,  if  thought 
is  to  be  aroused  and  not  words  acquired,  should  be  as  un- 
scholastic  as  possible.  To  realize  what  an  experience,  or  em- 
pirical situation,  means,  we  have  to  call  to  mind  the  sort  of 
situation  that  presents  itself  outside  of  school;  the  sort  of 
occupations  that  interest  and  engage  activity  in  ordinary 
life.  And  careful  inspection  of  methods  which  are  per- 
manently successful  in  formal  education,  whether  in  arith- 
metic or  learning  to  read,  or  studying  geography,  or  learning 
physics  or  a  foreign  language,  will  reveal  that  they  depend 
for  their  efficiency  upon  the  fact  that  they  go  back  to  the  type 
of  the  situation  which  causes  reflection  out  of  school  in  ordinary 
life.  They  give  the  pupUs  something  to  do,  not  something 
to  learn;  and  the  doing  is  of  such  a  nature  as  to  demand 
thinking,  or  the  intentional  noting  of  connections;  learning 
naturally  results. 

That  the  situation  should  be  of  such  a  nature  as  to  arouse 
thinking  means  of  course  that  it  should  suggest  something  to 
do  which  is  not  either  routine  or  capricious  —  something,  in 
other  words,  presenting  what  is  new  (and  hence  uncertain 
or  problematic)  and  yet  sufficiently  connected  with  existing 
habits  to  call  out  an  effective  response.  An  effective  response 
means  one  which  accomplishes  a  perceptible  result,  in  dis- 


1 82  Philosophy  of  Education 

tinction  from  a  purely  haphazard  activity,  where  the  conse- 
quences cannot  be  mentally  connected  with  what  is  done. 
The  most  significant  question  which  can  be  asked,  accordingly, 
about  any  situation  or  experience  proposed  to  induce  learning 
is  what  quality  of  problem  it  involves. 

At  first  thought,  it  might  seem  as  if  usual  school  methods 
measured  well  up  to  the  standard  here  set.  The  giving  of 
problems,  the  putting  of  questions,  the  assigning  of  tasks,  the 
magnifying  of  difiiculties,  is  a  large  part  of  school  work.  But 
it  is  indispensable  to  discriminate  between  genuine  and 
simulated  or  mock  problems.  The  following  questions  may 
aid  in  making  such  discrimination,  (a)  Is  there  anything  but 
a  problem  ?  Does  the  question  naturally  suggest  itself  within 
some  situation  of  personal  experience?  Or  is  it  an  aloof 
thing,  a  problem  only  for  the  purposes  of  conveying  instruc- 
tion in  some  school  topic  ?  Is  it  the  sort  of  trying  that  would 
arouse  observation  and  engage  experimentation  outside  of 
school  ?  (b)  Is  it  the  pupil's  own  problem,  or  is  it  the  teacher's 
or  textbook's  problem,  made  a  problem  for  the  pupil  only 
because  he  cannot  get  the  required  mark  or  be  promoted  or 
win  the  teacher's  approval,  unless  he  deals  with  it  ?  Obviously, 
these  two  questions  overlap.  They  are  two  ways  of  getting 
at  the  same  point :  Is  the  experience  a  personal  thing  of  such 
a  nature  as  inherently  to  stimulate  and  direct  observation 
of  the  connections  involved,  and  to  lead  to  inference  and  its 
testing?  Or  is  it  imposed  from  without,  and  is  the  pupil's 
problem  simply  to  meet  the  external  requirement? 

Such  questions  may  give  us  pause  in  deciding  upon  the 
extent  to  which  current  practices  are  adapted  to  develop 
reflective  habits.  The  physical  equipment  and  arrangements 
of  the  average  schoolroom  are  hostile  to  the  existence  of 
real  situations  of  experience.  What  is  there  similar  to  the 
conditions  of  everyday  Hfe  which  will  generate  difficulties? 
Almost  everything  testifies  to  the  great  premium  put  upon 
listening,  reading,  and  the  reproduction  of  what  is  told  and 


Thinking  in  Education  183 

read.  It  is  hardly  possible  to  overstate  the  contrast  between 
such  conditions  and  the  situations  of  active  contact  with  things 
and  persons  in  the  home,  on  the  playground,  in  fulfilling 
of  ordinary  responsibiUties  of  Ufe.  Much  of  it  is  not  even  com- 
parable with  the  questions  which  may  arise  in  the  mind  of  a 
boy  or  girl  in  conversing  with  others  or  in  reading  books 
outside  of  the  school.  No  one  has  ever  explained  why  children 
are  so  full  of  questions  outside  of  the  school  (so  that  they 
pester  grown-up  persons  if  they  get  any  encouragement),  and 
the  conspicuous  absence  of  display  of  curiosity  about  the 
subject  matter  of  school  lessons.  Reflection  on  this  striking 
contrast  will  throw  hght  upon  the  question  of  how  far  cus- 
tomary school  conditions  supply  a  context  of  experience  in 
which  problems  naturally  suggest  themselves.  No  amount 
of  improvement  in  the  personal  technique  of  the  instructor 
will  wholly  remedy  this  state  of  things.  There  must  be  more 
actual  material,  more  stuff,  more  appHances,  and  more  oppor- 
tunities for  doing  things,  before  the  gap  can  be  overcome. 
And  where  children  are  engaged  in  doing  things  and  in  dis- 
cussing what  arises  in  the  course  of  their  doing,  it  is  found, 
even  with  comparatively  indifferent  modes  of  instruction, 
that  children's  inquiries  are  spontaneous  and  numerous, 
and  the  proposals  of  solution  advanced,  varied,  and  ingenious. 
As  a  consequence  of  the  absence  of  the  materials  and  occu- 
pations which  generate  real  problems,  the  pupil's  problems  are 
not  his ;  or,  rather,  they  are  his  only  a^  a  pupil,  not  as  a  human 
being.  Hence  the  lamentable  waste  in  carrying  over  such 
expertness  as  is  achieved  in  dealing  with  them  to  the  affairs 
of  life  beyond  the  schoolroom.  A  pupil  has  a  problem,  but 
it  is  the  problem  of  meeting  the  peculiar  requirements  set  by 
the  teacher.  His  problem  becomes  that  of  finding  out  what 
the  teacher  wants,  what  will  satisfy  the  teacher  in  recitation 
and  examination  and  outward  deportment.  Relationship  to 
subject  matter  is  no  longer  direct.  The  occasions  and  material 
of  thought  are  not  found  in  the  arithmetic  or  the  history  or 


184  Philosophy  of  Education 

geography  itself,  but  in  skillfully  adapting  that  material  to 
the  teacher's  requirements.  The  pupil  studies,  but  uncon- 
sciously to  himself  the  objects  of  his  study  are  the  conventions 
and  standards  of  the  school  system  and  school  authority,  not 
the  nominal  "  studies."  The  thinking  thus  evoked  is  artificially 
one-sided  at  the  best.  At  its  worst,  the  problem  of  the  pupil 
is  not  how  to  meet  the  requirements  of  school  Hfe,  but  how  to 
seem  to  meet  them  —  or,  how  to  come  near  enough  to  meeting 
them  to  sUde  along  without  an  undue  amount  of  friction. 
The  type  of  judgment  formed  by  these  devices  is  not  a  desirable 
addition  to  character.  If  these  statements  give  too  highly 
colored  a  picture  of  usual  school  methods,  the  exaggeration 
may  at  least  serve  to  illustrate  the  point :  the  need  of  active 
pursuits,  involving  the  use  of  material  to  accomplish  purposes, 
if  there  are  to  be  situations  which  normally  generate  problems 
occasioning  thoughtful  inquiry. 

II.  There  must  be  data  at  command  to  supply  the  considera- 
tions required  in  deaHng  with  the  specific  difficulty  which  has 
presented  itself.  Teachers  following  a  "  developing  "  method 
sometimes  tell  children  to  think  things  out  for  themselves  as  if 
they  could  spin  them  out  of  their  own  heads.  The  material 
of  thinking  is  not  thoughts,  but  actions,  facts,  events,  and  the 
relations  of  things.  In  other  words,  to  think  effectively  one 
must  have  had,  or  now  have,  experiences  which  will  furnish  him 
resources  for  coping  with  the  difficulty  at  hand.  A  difficulty 
is  an  indispensable  stimulus  to  thinking,  but  not  all  difficul- 
ties caU  out  thinking.  Sometimes  they  overwhelm  and  sub- 
merge and  discourage.  The  perplexing  situation  must  be 
sufficiently  like  situations  which  have  already  been  dealt  with 
so  that  pupils  will  have  some  control  of  the  means  of  handling 
it.  A  large  part  of  the  art  of  instruction  lies  in  making  the 
difficulty  of  new  problems  large  enough  to  challenge  thought, 
and  small  enough  so  that,  in  addition  to  the  confusion  naturally 
attending  the  novel  elements,  there  shall  be  luminous  familiar 
spots  from  which  helpful  suggestions  may  spring. 


Thinking  in  Ediication  185 

In  one  sense,  it  is  a  matter  of  indifference  by  what  psycho- 
logical means  the  subject  matter  for  reflection  is  provided. 
Memory,  observation,  reading,  communication,  are  all  avenues 
for  supplying  data.  The  relative  proportion  to  be  obtained 
from  each  is  a  matter  of  the  specific  features  of  the  particular 
problem  in  hand.  It  is  foolish  to  insist  upon  observation  of 
objects  presented  to  the  senses  if  the  student  is  so  famihar 
with  the  objects  that  he  could  just  as  well  recall  the  facts 
independently.  It  is  possible  to  induce  undue  and  crippling 
dependence  upon  sense-presentations.  No  one  can  carry 
around  with  him  a  museum  of  all  the  things  whose  properties 
will  assist  the  conduct  of  thought.  A  well-trained  mind  is 
one  that  has  a  maximum  of  resources  behind  it,  so  to  speak, 
and  that  is  accustomed  to  go  over  its  past  experiences  to  see 
what  they  yield.  On  the  other  hand,  a  quahty  or  relation  of 
even  a  famihar  object  may  previously  have  been  passed  over, 
and  be  just  the  fact  that  is  helpful  in  dealing  with  the  question. 
In  this  case  direct  observation  is  called  for.  The  same  prin- 
ciple appHes  to  the  use  to  be  made  of  observation  on  one  hand 
and  of  reading  and  "  telling  "  on  the  other.  Direct  observa- 
tion is  naturally  more  vivid  and  vital.  But  it  has  its  limita- 
tions; and  in  any  case  it  is  a  necessary  part  of  education 
that  one  should  acquire  the  abihty  to  supplement  the  narrow- 
ness of  his  immediately  personal  experiences  by  utiUzing  the 
experiences  of  others.  Excessive  rehance  upon  others  for 
data  (whether  got  from  reading  or  Hstening)  is  to  be  depre- 
ciated. Most  objectionable  of  all  is  the  probability  that  others, 
the  book  or  the  teacher,  will  supply  solutions  ready-made, 
instead  of  giving  material  that  the  student  has  to  adapt  and 
apply  to  the  question  in  hand  for  himself. 

There  is  no  inconsistency  in  saying  that  in  schools  there 
is  usually  both  too  much  and  too  Httle  information  supplied 
by  others.  The  accumulation  and  acquisition  of  information 
for  purposes  of  reproduction  in  recitation  and  examination 
is  made  too  much  of.     "  Knowledge,"  in  the  sense  of  infonna- 


1 86  Philosophy  of  Education 

tion,  means  the  working  capital,  the  indispensable  resources,  oi 
further  inquiry ;  of  finding  out,  or  learning,  more  things.  Fre- 
quently it  is  treated  as  an  end  itself,  and  then  the  goal  becomes 
to  heap  it  up  and  display  it  when  called  for.  This  static, 
cold-storage  ideal  of  knowledge  is  inimical  to  educative  de- 
velopment. It  not  only  lets  occasions  for  thinking  go  unused, 
but  it  swamps  thinking.  No  one  could  construct  a  house  on 
ground  cluttered  with  miscellaneous  junk.  Pupils  who  have 
stored  their  "  minds  "  with  all  kinds  of  material  which  they 
have  never  put  to  intellectual  uses  are  sure  to  be  hampered 
when  they  try  to  think.  They  have  no  practice  in  select- 
ing what  is  appropriate,  and  no  criterion  to  go  by ;  every- 
thing is  on  the  same  dead  static  level.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  quite  open  to  question  whether,  if  information 
actually  functioned  in  experience  through  use  in  application 
to  the  student's  own  purposes,  there  would  not  be  need  of 
more  varied  resources  in  books,  pictures,  and  talks  than  are 
usually  at  command. 

III.  The  correlate  in  thinking  of  facts,  data,  knowledge 
already  acquired,  is  suggestions,  inferences,  conjectured  mean- 
ings, suppositions,  tentative  explanations :  —  ideas,  in  short 
Careful  observation  and  recollection  determine  what  is  given, 
what  is  already  there,  and  hence  assured.  They  cannot  furnish 
what  is  lacking.  They  define,  clarify,  and  locate  the  question , 
they  cannot  supply  its  answer.  Projection,  invention,  in- 
genuity, devising  come  in  for  that  purpose.  The  data  arouse 
suggestions,  and  only  by  reference  to  the  specific  data  can  we 
pass  upon  the  appropriateness  of  the  suggestions.  But  the 
suggestions  run  beyond  what  is,  as  yet,  actually  given  in 
experience.  They  forecast  possible  results,  things  to  do, 
not  facts  (things  already  done).  Inference  is  always  an  in- 
vasion of  the  unknown,  a  leap  from  the  known. 

In  this  sense,  a  thought  (what  a  thing  suggests  but  is  not 
as  it  is  presented)  is  creative,  —  an  incursion  into  the  novel. 
It  involves  some  inventiveness.    What  is  suggested  must, 


Thinking  in  Education  187 

indeed,  be  familiar  in  some  context ;  the  novelty,  the  inventive 
devising,  clings  to  the  new  light  in  which  it  is  seen,  the  different 
use  to  which  it  is  put.  When  Newton  thought  of  his  theory 
of  gravitation,  the  creative  aspect  of  his  thought  was  not 
found  in  its  materials.  They  were  famiUar ;  many  of  them 
commonplaces  —  sun,  moon,  planets,  weight,  distance,  mass, 
square  of  numbers.  These  were  not  original  ideas;  they 
were  established  facts.  His  originaHty  lay  in  the  use  to  which 
these  famihar  acquaintances  were  put  by  introduction  into 
an  unfamihar  context.  The  same  is  true  of  every  striking 
scientific  discovery,  every  great  invention,  every  admirable 
artistic  production.  Only  silly  folk  identify  creative  original- 
ity with  the  extraordinary  and  fanciful ;  others  recognize  that 
its  measure  lies  in  putting  everyday  things  to  uses  which  had 
not  occurred  to  others.  The  operation  is  novel,  not  the 
materials  out  of  which  it  is  constructed. 

The  educational  conclusion  which  follows  is  that  all  thinking 
is  original  in  a  projection  of  considerations  which  have  not 
been  previously  apprehended.  The  child  of  three  who  dis- 
covers what  can  be  done  with  blocks,  or  of  six  who  finds  out 
what  he  can  make  by  putting  five  cents  and  five  cents  together, 
is  really  a  discoverer,  even  though  everybody  else  in  the  world 
knows  it.  There  is  a  genuine  increment  of  experience ;  not 
another  item  mechanically  added  on,  but  enrichment  by  a  new 
quality.  The  charm  which  the  spontaneity  of  little  children 
has  for  sympathetic  observers  is  due  to  perception  of  this 
intellectual  originality.  The  joy  which  children  themselves 
experience  is  the  joy  of  intellectual  constructiveness  —  of 
creativeness,  if  the  word  may  be  used  without  misunderstand- 
ing. 

The  educational  moral  I  am  chiefly  concerned  to  draw  is 
not,  however,  that  teachers  would  find  their  own  work  less  of  a 
grind  and  strain  if  school  conditions  favored  learning  in  the 
sense  of  discovery  and  not  in  that  of  storing  away  what  others 
pour  into  them;   nor  that  it  would  be  possible  to  give  even 


1 88  Philosophy  of  Education 

children  and  youth  the  delights  of  personal  intellectual  pro-, 
ductiveness  —  true  and  important  as  are  these  things.  It  is 
that  no  thought,  no  idea,  can  possibly  be  conveyed  as  an  idea 
from  one  person  to  another.  When  it  is  told,  it  is,  to  the  one 
to  whom  it  is  told,  another  given  fact,  not  an  idea.  The  com- 
munication may  stimulate  the  other  person  to  realize  the 
question  for  himself  and  to  think  out  a  like  idea,  or  it  may 
smother  his  intellectual  interest  and  suppress  his  dawning 
effort  at  thought.  But  what  he  directly  gets  cannot  be  an 
idea.  Only  by  wrestling  with  the  conditions  of  the  problem 
at  first  hand,  seeking  and  finding  his  own  way  out,  does  he 
think.  When  the  parent  or  teacher  has  provided  the  con- 
ditions which  stimulate  thinking  and  has  taken  a  sympathetic 
attitude  toward  the  activities  of  the  learner  by  entering  into 
a  common  or  conjoint  experience,  all  has  been  done  which  a 
second  party  can  do  to  instigate  learning.  The  rest  Ues  with 
the  one  directly  concerned.  If  he  cannot  devise  his  own  solu- 
tion  (not  of  course  in  isolation,  but  in  correspondence  with 
the  teacher  and  other  pupils)  and  find  his  own  way  out  he  will 
not  learn,  not  even  if  he  can  recite  some  correct  answer  with 
one  hundred  per  cent  accuracy.  We  can  and  do  supply 
ready-made  '  ideas  '  by  the  thousand ;  we  do  not  usually  take 
much  pains  to  see  that  the  one  learning  engages  in  significant 
situations  where  his  own  activities  generate,  support,  and  clinch 
ideas  —  that  is,  perceived  meanings  or  connections.  This 
does  not  mean  that  the  teacher  is  to  stand  off  and  look  on; 
the  alternative  to  furnishing  ready-made  subject  matter  and 
listening  to  the  accuracy  with  which  it  is  reproduced  is  not 
quiescence,  but  participation,  sharing,  in  an  activity.  In 
such  shared  activity,  the  teacher  is  a  learner,  and  the  learner 
is,  without  knowing  it,  a  teacher  —  and  upon  the  whole,  the 
less  consciousness  there  is,  on  either  side,  of  either  giving  or 
receiving  instruction,  the  better. 

IV.  Ideas,  as  we  have  seen,  whether  they  be  humble  guesses 
or  dignified  theories,  are  anticipations  of  possible  solutions. 


Thinking  in  Edttcation  189 

They  are  anticipations  of  some  continuity  or  connection  of  an 
activity  and  a  consequence  which  has  not  as  yet  shown  itself. 
They  are  therefore  tested  by  the  operation  of  acting  upon  them. 
They  are  to  guide  and  organize  further  observations,  recollec- 
tions, and  experiments.  They  are  intermediate  in  learning, 
not  final.  All  educational  reformers,  as  we  have  had  occasion 
to  remark,  are  given  to  attacking  the  passivity  of  traditional 
education.  They  have  opposed  pouring  in  from  without, 
and  absorbing  like  a  sponge;  they  have  attacked  drilling  in 
material  as  into  hard  and  resisting  rock.  But  it  is  not  easy 
to  secure  conditions  which  will  make  the  getting  of  an  idea 
identical  with  having  an  experience  which  widens  and  makes 
more  precise  our  contact  with  the  environment.  Activity, 
even  self-activity,  is  too  easily  thought  of  as  something 
merely  mental,  cooped  up  within  the  head,  or  finding  expres- 
sion only  through  the  vocal  organs. 

While  the  need  of  application  of  ideas  gained  in  study 
is  acknowledged  by  all  the  more  successful  methods  of  in- 
struction, the  exercises  in  application  are  sometimes  treated 
as  devices  for  fixing  what  has  already  been  learned  and  for 
getting  greater  practical  skill  in  its  manipulation.  These 
results  are  genuine  and  not  to  be  despised.  But  practice  in 
applying  what  has  been  gained  in  study  ought  primarily 
to  have  an  intellectual  quality.  As  we  have  already  seen, 
thoughts  just  as  thoughts  are  incomplete.  At  best  they  are 
tentative ;  they  are  suggestions,  indications.  They  are  stand- 
points and  methods  for  dealing  with  situations  of  experi- 
ence. Till  they  are  applied  in  these  situations  they  lack 
full  point  and  reality.  Only  application  tests  them,  and  only 
testing  confers  full  meaning  and  a  sense  of  their  reality. 
Short  of  use  made  of  them,  they  tend  to  segregate  into  a 
peculiar  world  of  their  own.  It  may  be  seriously  questioned 
whether  the  philosophies  (to  which  reference  has  been  made 
in  section  2  of  chapter  X)  which  isolate  mind  and  set  it  over 
against  the  world  did  not  have  their  origin  in  the  fact  that 


190  Philosophy  of  Education 

the  reflective  or  theoretical  class  of  men  elaborated  a  large 
stock  of  ideas  which  social  conditions  did  not  allow  them  to 
act  upon  and  test.  Consequently  men  were  thrown  back 
into  their  own  thoughts  as  ends  in  themselves. 

However  this  may  be,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  a  peculiar 
artificiality  attaches  to  much  of  what  is  learned  in  schools.  It 
can  hardly  be  said  that  many  students  consciously  think  of  the 
subject  matter  as  unreal ;  but  it  assuredly  does  not  possess  for 
them  the  kind  of  reahty  which  the  subject  matter  of  their  vital 
experiences  possesses.  They  learn  not  to  expect  that  sort  of 
reality  of  it ;  they  become  habituated  to  treating  it  as  having 
reahty  for  the  purposes  of  recitations,  lessons,  and  examina- 
tions. That  it  should  remain  inert  for  the  experiences  of 
daily  life  is  more  or  less  a  matter  of  course.  The  bad  effects 
are  twofold.  Ordinary  experience  does  not  receive  the  en- 
richment which  it  should ;  it  is  not  fertilized  by  school  learning. 
And  the  attitudes  which  spring  from  getting  used  to  and  ac- 
cepting half-understood  and  ill-digested  material  weaken  vigor 
and  efficiency  of  thought. 

If  we  have  dwelt  especially  on  the  negative  side,  it  is  for  the 
sake  of  suggesting  positive  measures  adapted  to  the  effectual 
development  of  thought.  Where  schools  are  equipped  with 
laboratories,  shops,  and  gardens,  where  dramatizations,  plays, 
and  games  are  freely  used,  opportunities  exist  for  reproducing 
situations  of  life,  and  for  acquiring  and  applying  information 
and  ideas  in  the  carrying  forward  of  progressive  experiences. 
Ideas  are  not  segregated,  they  do  not  form  an  isolated  island. 
They  animate  and  enrich  the  ordinary  course  of  Ufe.  Informa- 
tion is  vitalized  by  its  function;  by  the  place  it  occupies  in 
direction  of  action. 

The  phrase  "  opportunities  exist  "  is  used  purposely.  They 
may  not  be  taken  advantage  of;  it  is  possible  to  employ 
manual  and  constructive  activities  in  a  physical  way,  as  means 
of  getting  just  bodily  skill ;  or  they  may  be  used  almost  ex- 
clusively for  "utilitarian,"  i.e.,  pecuniary,  ends.     But  the  dis- 


Thinking  in  Education  191 

position  on  the  part  of  upholders  of  "  cultural  "  education  to 
assume  that  such  activities  are  merely  physical  or  professional 
in  quality,  is  itself  a  product  of  the  philosophies  which  isolate 
mind  from  direction  of  the  course  of  experience  and  hence 
from  action  upon  and  with  things.  When  the  "  mental  "  is 
regarded  as  a  self-contained  separate  realm,  a  counterpart  fate 
befalls  bodily  activity  and  movements.  They  are  regarded  as 
at  the  best  mere  external  annexes  to  mind.  They  may  be 
necessary  for  the  satisfaction  of  bodily  needs  and  the  attain- 
ment of  external  decency  and  comfort,  but  they  do  not  occupy 
a  necessary  place  in  mind  nor  enact  an  indispensable  role  in  the 
completion  of  thought.  Hence  they  have  no  place  in  a  liberal 
education  —  i.e.,  one  which  is  concerned  with  the  interests 
of  intelligence.  If  they  come  in  at  all,  it  is  as  a  concession  to 
the  material  needs  of  the  masses.  That  they  should  be  al- 
lowed to  invade  the  education  of  the  elite  is  unspeakable.  This 
conclusion  follows  irresistibly  from  the  isolated  conception  of 
mind,  but  by  the  same  logic  it  disappears  when  we  perceive 
what  mind  really  is  —  namely,  the  purposive  and  directive 
factor  in  the  development  of  experience. 

While  it  is  desirable  that  all  educational  institutions  should 
be  equipped  so  as  to  give  students  an  opportunity  for  acquir- 
ing and  testing  ideas  and  information  in  active  pursuits  typify- 
ing important  social  situations,  it  will,  doubtless,  be  a  long 
time  before  all  of  them  are  thus  furnished.  But  this  state  of 
affairs  does  not  afford  instructors  an  excuse  for  folding  their 
hands  and  persisting  in  methods  which  segregate  school  knowl- 
edge. Every  recitation  in  every  subject  gives  an  opportunity 
for  establishing  cross  connections  between  the  subject  matter 
of  the  lesson  and  the  wider  and  more  direct  experiences  of 
everyday  Hfe.  Classroom  instruction  falls  into  three  kinds. 
The  least  desirable  treats  each  lesson  as  an  independent  whole. 
It  does  not  put  upon  the  student  the  responsibility  of  finding 
points  of  contact  between  it  and  other  lessons  in  the  same 
subject,  or  other  subjects  of  study.    Wiser  teachers  see  to  it 


1Q2  Philosophy  of  Education 

that  the  student  is  systematically  led  to  utilize  his  earlier  les- 
sons to  help  understand  the  present  one,  and  also  to  use  the 
present  to  throw  additional  Ught  upon  what  has  already  been 
acquired.  Results  are  better,  but  school  subject  matter  is 
stiU  isolated.  Save  by  accident,  out-of-school  experience  is 
left  in  its  crude  and  comparatively  irreflective  state.  It  is  not 
subject  to  the  refining  and  expanding  influences  of  the  more 
accurate  and  comprehensive  material  of  direct  instruction. 
The  latter  is  not  motivated  and  impregnated  with  a  sense  of 
reality  by  being  intermingled  with  the  reahties  of  everyday 
life.  The  best  type  of  teaching  bears  in  mind  the  desirability 
of  affecting  this  interconnection.  It  puts  the  student  in  the 
habitual  attitude  of  finding  points  of  contact  and  mutual 
bearings. 

Summary.  —  Processes  of  instruction  are  unified  in  the 
degree  in  which  they  center  in  the  production  of  good  habits 
of  thinking.  While  we  may  speak,  without  error,  of  the 
method  of  thought,  the  important  thing  is  that  thinking  is 
the  method  of  an  educative  experience.  The  essentials  of 
method  are  therefore  identical  with  the  essentials  of  reflection. 
They  are  first  that  the  pupil  have  a  genuine  situation  of  ex- 
perience —  that  there  be  a  continuous  activity  in  which  he  is 
interested  for  its  own  sake ;  secondly,  that  a  genuine  problem 
develop  within  this  situation  as  a  stimulus  to  thought; 
third,  that  he  possess  the  information  and  make  the  ob- 
servations needed  to  deal  with  it;  fourth,  that  suggested 
solutions  occur  to  him  which  he  shall  be  responsible  for  de- 
veloping in  an  orderly  way;  fifth,  that  he  have  opportunity 
and  occasion  to  test  his  ideas  by  application,  to  make  their 
meaning  clear  and  to  discover  for  himself  their  validity. 


CHAPTER  Xin 

THE   NATXIRE    OF   METHOD 

1.  The  Unity  of  Subject  Matter  and  Method.  —  The  trinity 
of  school  topics  is  subject  matter,  methods,  and  administration 
or  government.  We  have  been  concerned  with  the  two 
former  in  recent  chapters.  It  remains  to  disentangle  them 
from  the  context  in  which  they  have  been  referred  to,  and 
discuss  exphcitly  their  nature.  We  shall  begin  with  the  topic 
of  method,  since  that  lies  closest  to  the  considerations  of  the 
last  chapter.  Before  taking  it  up,  it  may  be  well,  however, 
to  caU  express  attention  to  one  impHcation  of  our  theory; 
the  connection  of  subject  matter  and  method  with  each  other. 
The  idea  that  mind  and  the  world  of  things  and  persons  are 
two  separate  and  independent  realms  —  a  theory  which  philo- 
sophically is  known  as  duahsm  —  carries  with  it  the  conclu- 
sion that  method  and  subject  matter  of  instruction  are  sepa- 
rate affairs.  Subject  matter  then  becomes  a  ready-made 
systematized  classification  of  the  facts  and  principles  of  the 
world  of  nature  and  man.  Method  then  has  for  its  province 
a  consideration  of  the  ways  in  which  this  antecedent  subject 
matter  may  be  best  presented  to  and  impressed  upon  the 
mind ;  or,  a  consideration  of  the  ways  in  which  the  mind  may 
be  externally  brought  to  bear  upon  the  matter  so  as  to  facili- 
tate its  acquisition  and  possession.  In  theory,  at  least,  one 
might  deduce  from  a  science  of  the  mind  as  something  exist- 
ing by  itseK  a  complete  theory  of  methods  of  learning,  with 
no  knowledge  of  the  subjects  to  which  the  methods  are  to  be 
apphed.  Since  many  who  are  actually  most  proficient  in 
various  branches  of  subject  matter  are  wholly  innocent  of 
o  193 


194  Philosophy  of  Edtication 

these  methods,  this  state  of  affairs  gives  opportunity  for  the* 
retort  that  pedagogy,  as  an  alleged  science  of  methods  of  the 
mind  in  learning,  is  futile ;  —  a  mere  screen  for  conceahng  the 
necessity  a  teacher  is  under  of  profound  and  accurate  acquaint- 
ance with  the  subject  in  hand. 

But  since  thinking  is  a  directed  movement  of  subject  matter 
to  a  completing  issue,  and  since  mind  is  the  deUberate  and 
intentional  phase  of  the  process,  the  notion  of  any  such  split 
is  radically  false.  The  fact  that  the  material  of  a  science  is 
organized  is  evidence  that  it  has  already  been  subjected  to 
intelligence ;  it  has  been  methodized,  so  to  say.  Zoology  as 
a  systematic  branch  of  knowledge  represents  crude,  scattered 
facts  of  our  ordinary  acquaintance  with  animals  after  they 
have  been  subjected  to  careful  examination,  to  deliberate 
supplementation,  and  to  arrangement  to  bring  out  connections 
which  assist  observation,  memory,  and  further  inquiry.  In- 
stead of  furnishing  a  starting  point  for  learning,  they  mark  out 
a  consummation.  Method  means  that  arrangement  of  sub- 
ject matter  which  makes  it  most  effective  in  use.  Never  is 
method  something  outside  of  the  material. 

How  about  method  from  the  standpoint  of  an  individual 
who  is  deaUng  with  subject  matter  ?  Again,  it  is  not  some- 
thing external.  It  is  simply  an  effective  treatment  of  material 
—  efficiency  meaning  such  treatment  as  utilizes  the  material 
(puts  it  to  a  purpose)  with  a  minimum  of  waste  of  time  and 
energy.  We  can  distinguish  a  way  of  acting,  and  discuss  it 
by  itself;  but  the  way  exists  only  as  a  way-of-deaHng-with- 
material.  Method  is  not  antithetical  to  subject  matter ;  it  is 
the  effective  direction  of  subject  matter  to  desired  results. 
It  is  antithetical  to  random  and  ill-considered  action,  — 
ill-considered  signifying  ill-adapted. 

The  statement  that  method  means  directed  movement  of 
subject  matter  towards  ends  is  formal.  An  illustration  may 
give  it  content.  Every  artist  must  have  a  method,  a  tech- 
nique, in  doing  his  work.     Piano  playing  is  not  hitting  thti 


The  Nature  of  Method  195 

keys  at  random.  It  is  an  orderly  way  of  using  them,  and  the 
order  is  not  something  which  exists  ready-made  in  the  musi- 
cian's hands  or  brain  prior  to  an  activity  dealing  with  the 
piano.  Order  is  found  in  the  disposition  of  acts  which  use 
the  piano  and  the  hands  and  brain  so  as  to  achieve  the  result 
intended.  It  is  the  action  of  the  piano  directed  to  accomplish 
the  purpose  of  the  piano  as  a  musical  instrument.  It  is  the 
same  with  '  pedagogical '  method.  The  only  difference  is 
that  the  piano  is  a  mechanism  constructed  in  advance  for  a 
single  end ;  while  the  material  of  study  is  capable  of  indefinite 
uses.  But  even  in  this  regard  the  illustration  may  apply  if 
we  consider  the  infinite  variety  of  kinds  of  music  which  a  piano 
may  produce,  and  the  variations  in  technique  required  in  the 
different  musical  results  secured.  Method  in  any  case  is  but 
an  effective  way  of  employing  some  material  for  some  end. 

These  considerations  may  be  generalized  by  going  back  to 
the  conception  of  experience.  Experience  as  the  perception 
of  the  connection  between  something  tried  and  something  un- 
dergone in  consequence  is  a  process.  Apart  from  effort 
to  control  the  course  which  the  process  takes,  there  is  no  dis- 
tinction of  subject  matter  and  method.  There  is  simply  an 
activity  which  includes  both  what  an  individual  does  and 
what  the  environment  does.  A  piano  player  who  had  perfect 
mastery  of  his  instrument  would  have  no  occasion  to  distin- 
guish between  his  contribution  and  that  of  the  piano.  In 
well-formed,  smooth-running  functions  of  any  sort,  —  skating, 
conversing,  hearing  music,  enjoying  a  landscape,  —  there  is  no 
consciousness  of  separation  of  the  method  of  the  person  and 
of  the  subject  matter.  In  whole-hearted  play  and  work  there 
is  the  same  phenomenon. 

When  we  reflect  upon  an  experience  instead  of  just  having 
it,  we  inevitably  distinguish  between  our  own  attitude  and  the 
objects  toward  which  we  sustain  the  attitude.  When  a  man 
is  eating,  he  is  ezXing  food.  He  does  not  divide  his  act  into 
sating  and  food.    But  if  he  makes  a  scientific  investigation  of 


196  Philosophy  of  Education 

the  act,  such  a  discrimination  is  the  first  thing  he  would  efifect. 
He  would  examine  on  the  one  hand  th'i  properties  of  the 
nutritive  material,  and  on  the  other  hand  the  acts  of  the  organ- 
ism in  appropriating  and  digesting.  Such  reflection  upon 
experience  gives  rise  to  a  distinction  of  what  we  experience 
(the  experiencec?)  and  the  experiencing  —  the  how.  When 
we  give  names  to  this  distinction  we  have  subject  matter  and 
method  as  our  terms.  There  is  the  thing  seen,  heard,  loved, 
hated,  imagined,  and  there  is  the  act  of  seeing,  hearing,  lov- 
ing, hating,  imagining,  etc. 

This  distinction  is  so  natural  and  so  important  for  certain 
purposes,  that  we  are  only  too  apt  to  regard  it  as  a  separation 
in  existence  and  not  as  a  distinction  in  thought.  Then  we 
make  a  division  between  a  self  and  the  environment  or  world. 
This  separation  is  the  root  of  the  dualism  of  method  and 
subject  matter.  That  is,  we  assume  that  knowing,  feeling, 
willing,  etc.,  are  things  which  belong  to  the  self  or  mind  in  its 
isolation,  and  which  then  may  be  brought  to  bear  upon  an 
independent  subject  matter.  We  assume  that  the  things 
which  belong  in  isolation  to  the  self  or  mind  have  their  own 
laws  of  operation  irrespective  of  the  modes  of  active  energy 
of  the  object.  These  laws  are  supposed  to  furnish  method. 
It  would  be  no  less  absurd  to  suppose  that  men  can  eat  with- 
out eating  something,  or  that  the  structure  and  movements 
of  the  jaws,  throat  muscles,  the  digestive  activities  of  stomach, 
etc.,  are  not  what  they  are  because  of  the  material  with  which 
their  activity  is  engaged.  Just  as  the  organs  of  the  organism 
are  a  continuous  part  of  the  very  world  in  which  food  materials 
exist,  so  the  capacities  of  seeing,  hearing,  loving,  imagining 
are  •  intrinsically  connected  with  the  subject  matter  of  the 
world.  They  are  more  truly  ways  in  which  the  environment 
enters  into  experience  and  functions  there  than  they  are  in- 
dependent acts  brought  to  bear  upon  things.  Experience,  in 
short,  is  not  a  combination  of  mind  and  world,  subject  and 
object,  method  and  subject  matter,  but  is  a  single  continuous 


The  Nature  of  Method  197 

interaction  of  a  great  diversity  (literally  countless  in  number) 
of  energies. 

For  the  purpose  of  controlling  the  course  or  direction  which 
the  moving  imity  of  experience  takes  we  draw  a  mental  dis- 
tinction between  the  how  and  the  what.  While  there  is  no 
way  of  waUdng  or  of  eating  or  of  learning  over  and  above  the 
actual  walking,  eating,  and  studying,  there  are  certain  elements 
in  the  act  which  give  the  key  to  its  more  effective  control. 
Special  attention  to  these  elements  makes  them  more  obvious 
to  perception  (letting  other  factors  recede  for  the  time 
being  from  conspicuous  recognition).  Getting  an  idea  of  how 
the  experience  proceeds  indicates  to  us  what  factors  must  be 
secured  or  modified  in  order  that  it  may  go  on  more  success- 
fully. This  is  only  a  somewhat  elaborate  way  of  saying  that 
if  a  man  watches  carefuUy  the  growth  of  several  plants,  some 
of  which  do  well  and  some  of  which  amount  to  little  or  noth- 
ing, he  may  be  able  to  detect  the  special  conditions  upon 
which  the  prosperous  development  of  a  plant  depends.  These 
conditions,  stated  in  an  orderly  sequence,  would  constitute 
the  method  or  way  or  manner  of  its  growth.  There  is  no 
difference  between  the  growth  of  a  plant  and  the  prosperous 
development  of  an  experience.  It  is  not  easy,  in  either  case, 
to  seize  upon  just  the  factors  which  make  for  its  best  move- 
ment. But  study  of  cases  of  success  and  failure  and  minute 
and  extensive  comparison,  helps  to  seize  upon  causes.  When 
we  have  arranged  these  causes  in  order,  we  have  a  method  of 
procedure  or  a  technique. 

A  consideration  of  some  evils  in  education  that  flow  from 
the  isolation  of  method  from  subject  matter  will  make  the 
point  more  definite,  (i)  In  the  first  place,  there  is  the  neg- 
lect (of  which  we  have  spoken)  of  concrete  situations  of  experi- 
ence. There  can  be  no  discovery  of  a  method  without  cases 
to  be  studied.  The  method  is  derived  from  observation  of 
what  actually  happens,  with  a  view  to  seeing  that  it  happen 
better  next  time.     But  in  instruction  and  discipline,  there  is 


198  Philosophy  of  Education 

rarely  sufficient  opportunity  for  children  and  youth  to  have 
the  direct  normal  experiences  from  which  educators  might 
derive  an  idea  of  method  or  order  of  best  development.  Ex- 
periences are  had  under  conditions  of  such  constraint  that  they 
throw  little  or  no  light  upon  the  normal  course  of  an  experi- 
ence to  its  fruition,  "  Methods  "  have  then  to  be  authorita- 
tively recommended  to  teachers,  instead  of  being  an  expres- 
sion of  their  own  intelligent  observations.  Under  such  cir- 
cumstances, they  have  a  mechanical  uniformity,  assumed 
to  be  alike  for  all  minds.  Where  flexible  personal  ex- 
periences are  promoted  by  providing  an  environment  which 
calls  out  directed  occupations  in  work  and  play,  the  methods 
ascertained  will  vary  with  individuals  —  for  it  is  certain  that 
each  individual  has  something  characteristic  in  his  way  of 
going  at  things. 

{ii)  In  the  second  place,  the  notion  of  methods  isolated 
from  subject  matter  is  responsible  for  the  false  conceptions 
of  discipline  and  interest  already  noted.  When  the  effective 
way  of  managing  material  is  treated  as  something  ready- 
made  apart  from  material,  there  are  just  three  possible  ways 
in  which  to  establish  a  relationship  lacking  by  assumption. 
One  is  to  utilize  excitement,  shock  of  pleasure,  tickling  the 
palate.  Another  is  to  make  the  consequences  of  not  attend- 
ing painful ;  we  may  use  the  menace  of  harm  to  motivate  con- 
cern with  the  alien  subject  matter.  Or  a  direct  appeal  may 
be  made  to  the  person  to  put  forth  effort  without  any  reason. 
We  may  rely  upon  immediate  strain  of  "  will."  In  practice, 
however,  the  latter  method  is  effectual  only  when  instigated 
by  fear  of  unpleasant  results. 

{Hi)  In  the  third  place,  the  act  of  learning  is  made  a  direct 
and  conscious  end  in  itself.  Under  normal  conditions,  learn- 
ing is  a  product  and  reward  of  occupation  with  subject  matter. 
Children  do  not  set  out,  consciously,  to  learn  walking  or  talk- 
ing. One  sets  out  to  give  his  impulses  for  communication 
and  for  fuller  intercourse  with  others  a  show.     He  learns  in 


The  Nature  of  Method  199 

consequence  of  his  direct  activities.  The  better  methods  of 
teaching  a  child,  say,  to  read,  follow  the  same  road.  They 
do  not  fix  his  attention  upon  the  fact  that  he  has  to  leam 
something  and  so  make  his  attitude  self-conscious  and  con- 
strained. They  engage  his  activities,  and  in  the  process  of 
engagement  he  learns :  the  same  is  true  of  the  more  successful 
methods  in  deaHng  with  number  or  whatever.  But  when  the 
subject  matter  is  not  used  in  carrying  forward  impulses  and 
habits  to  significant  results,  it  is  just  something  to  be  learned. 
The  pupil's  attitude  to  it  is  just  that  of  having  to  learn  it. 
Conditions  more  unfavorable  to  an  alert  and  concentrated 
response  would  be  hard  to  devise.  Frontal  attacks  are  even 
more  wasteful  in  learning  than  in  war.  This  does  not  mean, 
however,  that  students  are  to  be  seduced  unaware  into  pre- 
occupation with  lessons.  It  means  that  they  shall  be  occupied 
with  them  for  real  reasons  or  ends,  and  not  just  as  something 
to  be  learned.  This  is  accomplished  whenever  the  pupil  per- 
ceives the  place  occupied  by  the  subject  matter  in  the  ful- 
filling of  some  experience. 

{iv)  In  the  fourth  place,  under  the  influence  of  the  conception 
of  the  separation  of  mind  and  material,  method  tends  to  be 
reduced  to  a  cut  and  dried  routine,  to  following  mechanically 
prescribed  steps.  No  one  can  tell  in  how  many  schoolrooms 
children  reciting  in  arithmetic  or  grammar  are  compelled 
to  go  through,  under  the  alleged  sanction  of  method, 
certain  preordained  verbal  formulae.  Instead  of  being  en- 
couraged to  attack  their  topics  directly,  experimenting  with 
methods  that  seem  promising  and  learning  to  discriminate  by 
the  consequences  that  accrue,  it  is  assumed  that  there  is  one 
fixed  method  to  be  followed.  It  is  also  naively  assumed  that 
if  the  pupils  make  their  statements  and  explanations  in  a  cer- 
tain form  of  "  analysis,"  their  mental  habits  will  in  time  con- 
form. Nothing  has  brought  pedagogical  theory  into  greater 
disrepute  than  the  belief  that  it  is  identified  with  handing  out 
to  teachers  recipes  and  models  to  be  followed  in  teaching. 


200  Philosophy  of  Education 

Flexibility  and  initiative  in  dealing  with  problems  are  charac- 
teristic of  any  conception  to  which  method  is  a  way  of  man- 
aging material  to  develop  a  conclusion.  Mechanical  rigid 
woodermess  is  an  inevitable  corollary  of  any  theory  which 
separates  mind  from  activity  motivated  by  a  purpose. 

2.  Method  as  General  and  as  Individual.  —  In  brief,  the 
method  of  teaching  is  the  method  of  an  art,  of  action  intelli- 
gently directed  by  ends.  But  the  practice  of  a  fine  art  is  far 
from  being  a  matter  of  extemporized  inspirations.  Study  of 
the  operations  and  results  of  those  in  the  past  who  have 
greatly  succeeded  is  essential.  There  is  always  a  tradition,  or 
schools  of  art,  definite  enough  to  impress  beginners,  and  often 
to  take  them  captive.  Methods  of  artists  in  every  branch 
depend  upon  thorough  acquaintance  with  materials  and  tools ; 
the  painter  must  know  canvas,  pigments,  brushes,  and  the 
technique  of  manipulation  of  all  his  appliances.  Attainment 
of  this  knowledge  requires  persistent  and  concentrated  atten- 
tion to  objective  materials.  The  artist  studies  the  progress 
of  his  own  attempts  to  see  what  succeeds  and  what  fails. 
The  assumption  that  there  are  no  alternatives  between  follow- 
ing ready-made  rules  and  trusting  to  native  gifts,  the  in- 
spiration of  the  moment  and  undirected  "  hard  work,"  is  con- 
tradicted by  the  procedures  of  every  art. 

Such  matters  as  knowledge  of  the  past,  of  current  technique, 
of  materials,  of  the  ways  in  which  one's  own  best  results  are 
assured,  supply  the  material  for  what  may  be  called  general 
method.  There  exists  a  cumulative  body  of  fairly  stable 
methods  for  reaching  results,  a  body  authorized  by  past  ex- 
perience and  by  intellectual  analysis,  which  an  individual 
ignores  at  his  peril.  As  was  pointed  out  in  the  discussion  of 
habit-forming  {ante,  p.  58),  there  is  always  a  danger  that 
these  methods  will  become  mechanized  and  rigid,  mastering 
an  agent  instead  of  being  powers  at  command  for  his  own 
ends.  But  it  is  also  true  that  the  innovator  who  achieves 
anything  enduring,  whose  work  is  more  than  a  passing  sen- 


The  Nature  of  Method  201 

sation,  utilizes  classic  methods  more  than  may  appear  to  him- 
self or  to  his  critics.  He  devotes  them  to  new  uses,  and  in  so 
far  transforms  them. 

Education  also  has  its  general  methods.  And  if  the  appli- 
cation of  this  remark  is  more  obvious  in  the  case  of  the  teacher 
than  of  the  pupil,  it  is  equally  real  in  the  case  of  the  latter. 
Part  of  his  learning,  a  very  important  part,  consists  in  becom- 
ing master  of  the  methods  which  the  experience  of  others  has 
shown  to  be  most  efficient  in  like  cases  of  getting  knowledge.^ 
These  general  methods  are  in  no  way  opposed  to  individual 
initiative  and  originality  —  to  personal  ways  of  doing  things. 
On  the  contrary  they  are  reinforcements  of  them.  For  there 
is  radical  difference  between  even  the  most  general  method 
and  a  prescribed  rule.  The  latter  is  a  direct  guide  to  action ; 
the  former  operates  indirectly  through  the  enlightenment 
it  supplies  as  to  ends  and  means.  It  operates,  that  is  to  say, 
through  intelligence,  and  not  through  conformity  to  orders 
externally  imposed.  Ability  to  use  even  in  a  masterly  way 
an  established  technique  gives  no  warranty  of  artistic  work, 
for  the  latter  also  depends  upon  an  animating  idea. 

If  knowledge  of  methods  used  by  others  does  not  directly 
tell  us  what  to  do,  or  furnish  ready-made  models,  how  does  it 
operate?  What  is  meant  by  calling  a  method  intellectual? 
Take  the  case  of  a  physician.  No  mode  of  behavior  more  im- 
periously demands  knowledge  of  established  modes  of  diagnosis 
and  treatment  than  does  his.  But  after  all  cases  are  like,  not 
identical.  To  be  used  intelligently,  existing  practices,  however 
authorized  they  may  be,  have  to  be  adapted  to  the  exigen- 
cies of  particular  cases.  Accordingly,  recognized  procedures 
indicate  to  the  physician  what  inquiries  to  set  on  foot  for 
himself,  what  measures  to  try.  They  are  standpoints  from 
which  to  carry  on  investigations;  they  economize  a  survey 
of  the  features  of  the  particular  case  by  suggesting  the  things 

*  This  point  is  developed  below  in  a  discussion  of  what  are  termed  psycho- 
logical and  logical  methods  respectively.     See  p.  356. 


202  Philosophy  of  Education 

to  be  especially  looked  into.  The  physician's  own  personal 
attitudes,  his  own  ways  (individual  methods)  of  dealing  with 
the  situation  in  which  he  is  concerned,  are  not  subordinated 
to  the  general  principles  of  procedure,  but  are  facilitated  and 
directed  by  the  latter.  The  instance  may  serve  to  point  out 
the  value  to  the  teacher  of  a  knowledge  of  the  psychological 
methods  and  the  empirical  devices  found  useful  in  the  past. 
When  they  get  in  the  way  of  his  own  common  sense,  when 
they  come  between  him  and  the  situation  in  which  he  has  to 
act,  they  are  worse  than  useless.  But  if  he  has  acquired  them 
as  intellectual  aids  in  sizing  up  the  needs,  resources,  and  diffi- 
culties of  the  unique  experiences  in  which  he  engages,  they  are 
of  constructive  value.  In  the  last  resort,  just  because  evefy- 
thing  depends  upon  his  own  methods  of  response,  miich  depends 
upon  how  far  he  can  utilize,  in  making  his  own  response,  the 
knowledge  which  has  accrued  in  the  experience  of  others. 

As  already  intimated,  every  word  of  this  account  is  directly 
applicable  also  to  the  method  of  the  pupil,  the  way  of  learn- 
ing. To  suppose  that  students,  whether  in  the  primary  school 
or  in  the  university,  can  be  supplied  with  models  of  method  to 
be  followed  in  acquiring  and  expounding  a  subject  is  to  fall 
into  a  self-deception  that  has  lamentable  consequences.  (See 
ante,  p.  199.)  One  must  make  his  own  reaction  in  any  case. 
Indications  of  the  standardized  or  general  methods  used  in  like 
cases  by  others  —  particularly  by  those  who  are  already  ex- 
perts —  are  of  worth  or  of  harm  according  as  they  make  his 
personal  reaction  more  intelligent  or  as  they  induce  a  person 
to  dispense  with  exercise  of  his  own  judgment. 

[f  what  was  said  earlier  (See  p.  187)  about  originality  of 
thought  seemed  overstrained,  demanding  more  of  education 
than  the  capacities  of  average  human  nature  permit,  the  diffi- 
culty is  that  we  lie  under  the  incubus  of  a  superstition.  We 
have  set  up  the  notion  of  mind  at  large,  of  intellectual  method 
that  is  the  same  for  all.  Then  we  regard  individuals  as 
differing  in  the  quantity  of  mind  with  which  they  are  charged. 


The  Nature  of  Method  205 

Ordinary  persons  are  then  expected  to  be  ordinary.  Only 
the  exceptional  are  allowed  to  have  originality.  The  measure 
of  difference  between  the  average  student  and  the  genius  is 
a  measure  of  the  absence  of  originaHty  in  the  former.  But 
this  notion  of  mind  in  general  is  a  fiction.  How  one  person's 
abihties  compare  in  quantity  with  those  of  another  is  none  of 
the  teacher's  business.  It  is  irrelevant  to  his  work.  What  is 
required  is  that  every  individual  shall  have  opportunities  to 
employ  his  own  powers  in  activities  that  have  meaning. 
Mind,  individual  method,  originaHty  (these  are  convertible 
terms)  signify  the  quality  of  purposive  or  directed  action.  If 
we  act  upon  this  conviction,  we  shall  secure  more  originality 
even  by  the  conventional  standard  than  now  develops.  Impos- 
ing an  alleged  uniform  general  method  upon  everybody  breeds 
mediocrity  in  all  but  the  very  exceptional.  And  measuring 
originaHty  by  deviation  from  the  mass  breeds  eccentricity  in 
them.  Thus  we  stifle  the  distinctive  quaHty  of  the  many, 
and  save  in  rare  instances  (like,  say,  that  of  Darwin)  infect  the 
rare  geniuses  with  an  unwholesome  quaHty. 

3.  The  Traits  of  Individual  Method.  —  The  most  general 
features  of  the  method  of  knowing  have  been  given  in  our 
chapter  on  thinking.  They  are  the  features  of  the  reflective 
situation :  Problem,  collection  and  analysis  of  data,  projec- 
tion and  elaboration  of  suggestions  or  ideas,  experimental 
application  and  testing ;  the  resulting  conclusion  or  judgment. 
The  specific  elements  of  an  individual's  method  or  way  of 
attack  upon  a  problem  are  found  ultimately  in  his  native 
tendencies  and  his  acquired  habits  and  interests.  The  method 
of  one  will  vary  from  that  of  another  (and  properly  vary)  as 
his  original  instinctive  capacities  vary,  as  his  past  experiences 
and  his  preferences  vary.  Those  who  have  already  studied 
these  matters  are  in  possession  of  information  which  will  help 
teachers  in  understanding  the  responses  different  pupils  make, 
and  help  them  in  guiding  these  responses  to  greater  efficiency. 
Child-study,  psychology,  and  a  knowledge  of  social  environment 


204  Philosophy  of  Ediication 

supplement  the  personal  acquaintance  gained  by  the  teacher. 
But  methods  remain  the  personal  concern,  approach,  and 
attack  of  an  individual,  and  no  catalogue  can  ever  exhaust 
their  diversity  of  form  and  tint. 

Some  attitudes  may  be  named,  however,  which  are  central 
in  effective  intellectual  ways  of  dealing  with  subject  matter. 
Among  the  most  important  are  directness,  open-mindedness, 
single-mindedness  (or  whole-heartedness),  and  responsibility. 

I.  It  is  easier  to  indicate  what  is  meant  by  directness  through 
negative  terms  than  in  positive  ones.  Self -consciousness, 
embarrassment,  and  constraint  are  its  menacing  foes.  They 
indicate  that  a  person  is  not  immediately  concerned  with 
subject  matter.  Something  has  come  between  which  de- 
flects concern  to  side  issues.  A  self-conscious  person  is  partly 
thinking  about  his  problem  and  partly  about  what  others 
think  of  his  performances.  Diverted  energy  means  loss  of 
power  and  confusion  of  ideas.  Taking  an  attitude  is  by  no 
means  identical  with  being  conscious  of  one's  attitude.  The 
former  is  spontaneous,  naive,  and  simple.  It  is  a  sign  of 
whole-souled  relationship  between  a  person  and  what  he  is 
deaUng  with.  The  latter  is  not  of  necessity  abnormal.  It  is 
sometimes  the  easiest  way  of  correcting  a  false  method  of 
approach,  and  of  improving  the  effectiveness  of  the  means 
one  is  employing,  —  as  golf  players,  piano  players,  public 
speakers,  etc.,  have  occasionally  to  give  especial  attention  to 
their  position  and  movements.  But  this  need  is  occasional 
and  temporary.  When  it  is  effectual  a  person  thinks  of  him- 
self in  terms  of  what  is  to  be  done,  as  one  means  among  others 
of  the  realization  of  an  end  —  as  in  the  case  of  a  tennis  player 
practicing  to  get  the  "  feel  "  of  a  stroke.  In  abnormal  cases, 
one  thinks  of  himself  not  as  part  of  the  agencies  of  execution, 
but  as  a  separate  object  —  as  when  the  player  strikes  an 
attitude  thinking  of  the  impression  it  will  make  upon  spec- 
tators, or  is  worried  because  of  the  impression  he  fears  his 
movements  give  rise  to. 


The  Nature  of  Method  205 

Confidence  is  a  good  name  for  what  is  intended  by  the  term 
directness.  It  should  not  be  confused,  however,  with  self- 
confidence  which  may  be  a  form  of  self -consciousness — or  of 
"  cheek."  Confidence  is  not  a  name  for  what  one  thinks  or 
feels  about  his  attitude ;  it  is  not  reflex.  It  denotes  the 
straightforwardness  with  which  one  goes  at  what  he  has  to  do. 
It  denotes  not  conscious  trust  in  the  efficacy  of  one's  powers 
but  unconscious  faith  in  the  possibilities  of  the  situation.  It 
signifies  rising  to  the  needs  of  the  situation. 

We  have  already  pointed  out  (See  p.  199)  the  objections  to 
making  students  emphatically  aware  of  the  fact  that  they  are 
studying  or  learning.  Just  in  the  degree  in  which  they  are 
induced  by  the  conditions  to  be  so  aware,  they  are  not  study- 
ing and  learning.  They  are  in  a  divided  and  compHcated 
attitude.  Whatever  methods  of  a  teacher  call  a  pupil's  atten- 
tion off  from  what  he  has  to  do  and  transfer  it  to  his  own 
attitude  towards  what  he  is  doing  impair  directness  of 
concern  and  action.  Persisted  in,  the  pupil  acquires  a  per- 
manent tendency  to  fumble,  to  gaze  about  aimlessly,  to  look 
for  some  clew  of  action  beside  that  which  the  subject  matter 
suppHes.  Dependence  upon  extraneous  suggestions  and 
directions,  a  state  of  foggy  confusion,  take  the  place  of  that 
sureness  with  which  children  (and  grown-up  people  who  have 
not  been  sophisticated  by  "  education  ")  confront  the  situa- 
tions of  Hfe. 

2.  Open-mindedness.  Partiality  is,  as  we  have  seen,  an 
accompaniment  of  the  existence  of  interest,  since  this  means 
sharing,  partaking,  taking  sides  in  some  movement.  All  the 
more  reason,  therefore,  for  an  attitude  of  mind  which  actively 
welcomes  suggestions  and  relevant  information  from  all  sides. 
In  the  chapter  on  Aims  it  was  shown  that  foreseen  ends  are 
factors  in  the  development  of  a  changing  situation.  They 
are  the  means  by  which  the  direction  of  action  is  controlled. 
They  are  subordinate  to  the  situation,  therefore,  not  the  situa- 
tion to  them.     They  are  not  ends  in  the  sense  of  finaHties  to 


2o6  Philosophy  of  Education 

which  everything  must  be  bent  and  sacrificed.  They  are,  as 
foreseen,  means  of  guiding  the  development  of  a  situation.  A 
target  is  not  the  future  goal  of  shooting;  it  is  the  centering 
factor  in  a  present  shooting.  Openness  of  mind  means  acces- 
sibility of  mind  to  any  and  every  consideration  that  will 
throw  light  upon  the  situation  that  needs  to  be  cleared  up, 
and  that  will  help  determine  the  consequences  of  acting  this 
way  or  that.  Efficiency  in  accompHshing  ends  which  have 
been  settled  upon  as  unalterable  can  coexist  with  a  narrowly 
opened  mind.  But  intellectual  growth  means  constant  expan- 
sion of  horizons  and  consequent  formation  of  new  purposes 
and  new  responses.  These  are  impossible  without  an  active 
disposition  to  welcome  points  of  view  hitherto  alien ;  an  active 
desire  to  entertain  considerations  which  modify  existing  pur- 
poses. Retention  of  capacity  to  grow  is  the  reward  of  such 
intellectual  hospitality.  The  worst  thing  about  stubbornness 
of  mind,  about  prejudices,  is  that  they  arrest  development; 
they  shut  the  mind  off  from  new  stimuli.  Open-mindedness 
means  retention  of  the  childlike  attitude ;  closed-mindedness 
means  premature  intellectual  old  age. 

Exorbitant  desire  for  uniformity  of  procedure  and  for 
prompt  external  results  are  the  chief  foes  which  the  open- 
minded  attitude  meets  in  school.  The  teacher  who  does  not 
permit  and  encourage  diversity  of  operation  in  dealing  with 
questions  is  imposing  intellectual  blinders  upon  pupils  —  re- 
stricting their  vision  to  the  one  path  the  teacher's  mind  happens 
to  approve.  Probably  the  chief  cause  of  devotion  to  rigidity 
of  method  is,  however,  that  it  seems  to  promise  speedy,  accu- 
rately measurable,  correct  results.  The  zeal  for  "  answers  "  is 
the  explanation  of  much  of  the  zeal  for  rigid  and  mechanical 
methods.  Forcing  and  overpressure  have  the  same  origin, 
and  the  same  result  upon  alert  and  varied  intellectual  interest. 

Open-mindedness  is  not  the  same  as  empty-mindedness. 
To  hang  out  a  sign  saying  "  Come  right  in ;  there  is  no  one 
at  home  "  is  not  the  equivalent  of  hospitality.     But  there  is  a 


The  Nature  of  Method  207 

kind  of  passivity,  willingness  to  let  experiences  accumulate  and 
sink  in  and  ripen,  which  is  an  essential  of  development.  Re- 
sults (external  answers  or  solutions)  may  be  hurried ;  processes 
may  not  be  forced.  They  take  their  own  time  to  mature. 
Were  all  instructors  to  realize  that  the  quality  of  mental 
process,  not  the  production  of  correct  answers,  is  the  measure 
of  educative  growth  something  hardly  less  than  a  revolution 
in  teaching  would  be  worked. 

3.  Single-mindedness.  So  far  as  the  word  is  concerned, 
much  that  was  said  under  the  head  of  "  directness  "  is  ap- 
phcable.  But  what  the  word  is  here  intended  to  convey  is 
completeness  of  interest,  unity  of  purpose ;  the  absence  of 
suppressed  but  effectual  ulterior  aims  for  which  the  professed 
aim  is  but  a  mask.  It  is  equivalent  to  mental  integrity. 
Absorption,  engrossment,  full  concern  with  subject  matter  for 
its  own  sake,  nurture  it.  Divided  interest  and  evasion  destroy 
it. 

Intellectual  integrity,  honesty,  and  sincerity  are  at  bottom 
not  matters  of  conscious  purpose  but  of  quality  of  active  re- 
sponse. Their  acquisition  is  fostered  of  course  by  conscious 
intent,  but  self-deception  is  very  easy.  Desires  are  urgent. 
When  the  demands  and  wishes  of  others  forbid  their  direct 
expression  they  are  easUy  driven >  into  subterranean  and  deep 
channels.  Entire  surrender,  and  whole-hearted  adoption  of 
the  course  of  action  demanded  by  others  are  almost  impossible. 
Deliberate  revolt  or  deliberate  attempts  to  deceive  others 
may  result.  But  the  more  frequent  outcome  is  a  confused 
and  divided  state  of  interest  in  which  one  is  fooled  as  to  one's 
own  real  intent.  One  tries  to  serve  two  masters  at  once. 
Social  instincts,  the  strong  desire  to  please  others  and  get  their 
approval,  social  training,  the  general  sense  of  duty  and  of 
authority,  apprehension  of  penalty,  all  lead  to  a  half-hearted 
effort  to  conform,  to  "  pay  attention  to  the  lesson,"  or  what- 
ever the  requirement  is.  Amiable  individuals  want  to  do 
what  they  are  expected  to  do.     Consciously  the  pupil  thinks 

r 


2o8  Philosophy  of  Education 

ne  is  doing  this.  But  his  own  desires  are  not  abolished. 
Only  their  evident  exhibition  is  suppressed.  Strain  of  atten- 
tion to  what  is  hostile  to  desire  is  irksome ;  in  spite  of  one's 
conscious  wish,  the  underlying  desires  determine  the  main 
course  of  thought,  the  deeper  emotional  responses.  The  mind 
wanders  from  the  nominal  subject  and  devotes  itself  to  what 
is  intrinsically  more  desirable.  A  systematized  divided  atten- 
tion expressing  tlie  duplicity  of  the  state  of  desire  is  the  result. 
One  has  only  to  recall  his  own  experiences  in  school  or  at 
the  present  time  when  outwardly  employed  in  actions  which 
do  not  engage  one's  desires  and  purposes,  to  realize  how  preva- 
lent is  this  attitude  of  divided  attention  —  double-mindedness. 
We  are  so  used  to  it  that  we  take  it  for  granted  that  a  consider- 
able amount  of  it  is  necessary.  It  may  be ;  if  so,  it  is  the  more 
important  to  face  its  bad  intellectual  effects.  Obvious  is  the 
loss  of  energy  of  thought  immediately  available  when  one  is 
consciously  trying  (or  trying  to  seem  to  try)  to  attend  to  one 
matter,  while  unconsciously  one's  imagination  is  spontaneously 
going  out  to  more  congenial  affairs.  More  subtle  and  more 
permanently  crippHng  to  efficiency  of  intellectual  activity  is 
a  fostering  of  habitual  self-deception,  with  the  confused 
sense  of  reality  which  accompanies  it.  A  double  standard  of 
reality,  one  for  our  own  private  and  more  or  less  concealed 
interests,  and  another  for  pubUc  and  acknowledged  concerns, 
hampers,  in  most  of  us,  integrity  and  completeness  of  mental 
action.  Equally  serious  is  the  fact  that  a  spHt  is  set  up 
between  conscious  thought  and  attention  and  impulsive  blind 
affection  and  desire.  Reflective  dealings  with  the  material  of 
instruction  is  constrained  and  half-hearted ;  attention  wanders. 
The  topics  to  which  it  wanders  are  unavowed  and  hence  intel- 
lectually ilKcit;  transactions  with  them  are  furtive.  The 
discipline  that  comes  from  regulating  response  by  deliberate 
mquiry  having  a  purpose  fails ;  worse  than  that,  the  deepest 
concern  and  most  congenial  enterprises  of  the  imagination 
(since  they  center  about  the  things  dearest  to  desire)  arc 


The  Nature  of  Method  209 

casual,  concealed.  They  enter  into  action  in  ways  which  are 
unacknowledged.  Not  subject  to  rectification  by  considera- 
tion of  consequences,  they  are  demoralizing. 

School  conditions  favorable  to  this  division  of  mind  between 
avowed,  public,  and  socially  responsible  undertakings,  and 
private,  ill-regulated,  and  suppressed  indulgences  of  thought 
are  not  hard  to  find.  What  is  sometimes  called  "  stem  dis- 
cipline," i.e.,  external  coercive  pressure,  has  this  tendency. 
Motivation  through  rewards  extraneous  to  the  thing  to  be 
done  has  a  hke  effect.  Everything  that  makes  schooling 
merely  preparatory  (See  ante,  p.  64)  works  in  this  direction. 
Ends  being  beyond  the  pupil's  present  grasp,  other  agencies 
have  to  be  foimd  to  procure  immediate  attention  to  assigned 
tasks.  Some  responses  are  secured,  but  desires  and  affections 
not  enKsted  must  find  other  outlets.  Not  less  serious  is  exag- 
gerated emphasis  upon  drill  exercises  designed  to  produce 
skill  in  action,  independent  of  any  engagement  of  thought 
—  exercises  having  no  purpose  but  the  production  of  auto- 
matic skill.  Nature  abhors  a  mental  vacuum.  What  do 
teachers  imagine  is  happening  to  thought  and  emotion  when 
the  latter  get  no  outlet  in  the  things  of  immediate  activity? 
Were  they  merely  kept  in  temporary  abeyance,  or  even  only 
calloused,  it  would  not  be  a  matter  of  so  much  moment. 
But  they  are  not  abolished ;  they  are  not  suspended ; 
they  are  not  suppressed  —  save  with  reference  to  the  task  in 
question.  They  follow  their  own  chaotic  and  undisciplined 
course.  What  is  native,  spontaneous,  and  vital  in  mental 
reaction  goes  unused  and  untested,  and  the  habits  formed  are 
such  that  these  qualities  become  less  and  less  available  for 
public  and  avowed  ends. 

4.  Responsibility.  By  responsibility  as  an  element  in  intel- 
lectual attitude  is  meant  the  disposition  to  consider  in  advance 
the  probable  consequences  of  any  projected  step  and  delib- 
erately to  accept  them :  to  accept  them  in  the  sense  of 
taking  them  into  account,  acknowledging  them  in  action,  not 

F 


2IO  Philosophy  of  Education 

yielding  a  mere  verbal  assent.  Ideas,  as  we  have  seen,  are 
intrinsically  standpoints  and  methods  for  bringing  about  a 
solution  of  a  perplexing  situation ;  forecasts  calculated  to 
influence  responses.  It  is  only  too  easy  to  think  that  one 
accepts  a  statement  or  believes  a  suggested  truth  when  one 
has  not  considered  its  implications ;  when  one  has  made  but 
a  cursory  and  superficial  survey  of  what  further  things  one  is 
committed  to  by  acceptance.  Observation  and  recognition, 
belief  and  assent,  then  become  names  for  lazy  acquiescence  in 
what  is  externally  presented. 

It  would  be  much  better  to  have  fewer  facts  and  truths  in 
instruction — that  is,  fewer  things  supposedly  accepted,  —  if  a 
smaller  number  of  situations  could  be  intellectually  worked 
out  to  the  point  where  conviction  meant  something  real  — 
some  identification  of  the  self  with  the  type  of  conduct  de- 
manded by  facts  and  foresight  of  results.  The  most  per- 
manent bad  results  of  undue  complication  of  school  subjects 
and  congestion  of  school  studies  and  lessons  are  not  the  worry, 
nervous  strain,  and  superficial  acquaintance  that  follow  (serious 
as  these  are) ,  but  the  failure  to  make  clear  what  is  involved  in 
really  knowing  and  believing  a  thing.  Intellectual  responsi- 
bihty  means  severe  standards  in  this  regard.  These  standards 
can  be  built  up  only  through  practice  in  following  up  and 
acting  upon  the  meaning  of  what  is  acquired. 

Intellectual  thoroughness  is  thus  another  name  for  the  atti- 
tude  we  are  considering.  There  is  a  kind  of  thoroughness 
which  is  almost  purely  physical :  the  kind  that  signifies 
mechanical  and  exhausting  drill  upon  all  the  details  of  a  sub- 
ject. Intellectual  thoroughness  is  seeing  a  thing  through.  It 
depends  upon  a  unity  of  purpose  to  which  details  are  subordi- 
nated, not  upon  presenting  a  multitude  of  disconnected  details. 
It  is  manifested  in  the  firmness  with  which  the  full  meaning 
of  the  purpose  is  developed,  not  in  attention,  however  "  con- 
scientious "  it  may  be,  to  the  steps  of  action  externally  im- 
posed and  directed. 


The  Nature  oj  Method  2n 

Summary.  —  Method  is  a  statement  of  the  way  the  subject 
matter  of  an  experience  develops  most  effectively  and  fruit- 
fully. It  is  derived,  accordingly,  from  observation  of  the 
course  of  experiences  where  there  is  no  conscious  distinction 
of  personal  attitude  and  manner  from  material  dealt  with. 
The  assumption  that  method  is  something  separate  is  con- 
nected with  the  notion  of  the  isolation  of  mind  and  self 
from  the  world  of  things.  It  makes  instruction  and  learning 
formal,  mechanical,  constrained.  While  methods  are  indi- 
vidualized, certain  features  of  the  normal  course  of  an  experi- 
ence to  its  fruition  may  be  discriminated,  because  of  the  fund 
of  wisdom  derived  from  prior  experiences  and  because  of 
general  similarities  in  the  materials  dealt  with  from  time  to 
time.  Expressed  in  terms  of  the  attitude  of  the  individual 
the  traits  of  good  method  are  straightforwardness,  flexible 
intellectual  interest  or  open-minded  will  to  learn,  integrity  of 
purpose,  and  acceptance  of  responsibility  for  the  consequence? 
of  one's  activity  including  thought. 


CHAPTER  XrV 

THE  NATURE  OF  SUBJECT  MATTER 

1.   Subject  Matter  of  Educator  and  of  Learner.  -"—  So  far  as 

the  nature  of  subject  matter  in  principle  is  concerned,  there  is 
nothing  to  add  to  what  has  been  said  (See  ante,  p.  158).  It 
consists  of  the  facts  observed,  recalled,  read,  and  talked  about, 
and  the  ideas  suggested,  in  course  of  a  development  of  a  situa- 
tion having  a  purpose.  This  statement  needs  to  be  rendered 
more  specific  by  connecting  it  with  the  materials  of  school 
instruction,  the  studies  which  make  up  the  curriculum.  What 
is  the  significance  of  our  definition  in  application  to  reading, 
writing,  mathematics,  history,  nature  study,  drawing,  sing- 
ing, physics,  chemistry,  modern  and  foreign  languages,  and  so 
on? 

Let  us  recur  to  two  of  the  points  made  earlier  in  our  dis- 
cussion. The  educator's  part  in  the  enterprise  of  education 
is  to  furnish  the  environment  which  stimulates  responses 
and  directs  the  learner's  course.  In  last  analysis,  all  that 
the  educator  can  do  is  modify  stimuU  so  that  response  will  as 
surely  as  is  possible  result  in  the  formation  of  desirable  intel- 
lectual and  emotional  dispositions.  Obviously  studies  or  the 
subject  matter  of  the  curriculum  have  intimately  to  do  with 
this  business  of  supplying  an  environment.  The  other  point 
is  the  necessity  of  a  social  environment  to  give  meaning  to 
habits  formed.  In  what  we  have  termed  informal  education, 
subject  matter  is  carried  directly  in  the  matrix  of  social  inter- 
course. It  is  what  the  persons  with  whom  an  individual  asso- 
ciates do  and  say.  This  fact  gives  a  clew  to  the  understanding 
of  the  subject  matter  of  formal  or  deliberate  instruction.    A 


The  Nature  of  Subject  Matter  213 

connecting  link  is  found  in  the  stories,  traditions,  songs,  and 
liturgies  which  accompany  the  doings  and  rites  of  a  primitive 
social  group.  They  represent  the  stock  of  meanings  which 
have  been  precipitated  out  of  previous  experience,  which  are 
so  prized  by  the  group  as  to  be  identified  with  their  concep- 
tion of  their  own  collective  Hfe.  Not  being  obviously  a  part 
of  the  skill  exhibited  in  the  daily  occupations  of  eating,  hunt- 
ing, making  war  and  peace,  constructing  rugs,  pottery,  and 
baskets,  etc.,  they  are  consciously  impressed  upon  the  young; 
often,  as  in  the  initiation  ceremonies,  with  intense  emotional 
fervor.  Even  more  pains  are  consciously  taken  to  perpetuate 
the  myths,  legends,  and  sacred  verbal  formulae  of  the  group 
than  to  transmit  the  directly  useful  customs  of  the  group  just 
because  they  cannot  be  picked  up,  as  the  latter  can  be  in  the 
ordinary  processes  of  association. 

As  the  social  group  grows  more  complex,  involving  a  greater 
number  of  acquired  skills  which  are  dependent,  either  in  fact 
or  in  the  beUef  of  the  group,  upon  standard  ideas  deposited 
from  past  experience,  the  content  of  social  life  gets  more 
definitely  formulated  for  purposes  of  instruction.  As  we  have 
previously  noted,  probably  the  chief  motive  for  consciously 
dwelling  upon  the  group  hfe,  extracting  the  meanings  which 
are  regarded  as  most  important  and  systematizing  them  in  a 
coherent  arrangement,  is  just  the  need  of  instructing  the 
young  so  as  to  perpetuate  group  life.  Once  started  on 
this  road  of  selection,  formulation,  and  organization,  no 
definite  Hmit  exists.  The  invention  of  writing  and  of  print- 
ing gives  the  operation  an  immense  impetus.  Finally,  the 
bonds  which  connect  the  subject  matter  of  school  study  with 
the  habits  and  ideals  of  the  social  group  are  disguised  and 
covered  up.  The  ties  are  so  loosened  that  it  often  appears 
as  if  there  were  none ;  as  if  subject  matter  existed  simply  as 
knowledge  on  its  own  independent  behoof,  and  as  if  study 
were  the  mere  act  of  mastering  it  for  its  own  sake,  irrespec- 
tive of  any  social  values.     Since  it  is  highly  important  for 


214  Philosophy  of  Education 

practical  reasons  to  counteract  this  tendency  (See  ante,  p.  lo) 
the  chief  purposes  of  our  theoretical  discussion  are  to  make 
clear  the  connection  which  is  so  readily  lost  from  sight,  and 
to  show  in  some  detail  the  social  content  and  function  of  the 
chief  constituents  of  the  course  of  study. 

The  points  need  to  be  considered  from  the  standpoint  of 
instructor  and  of  student.  To  the  former,  the  significance  of  a 
knowledge  of  subject  matter,  going  far  beyond  the  present 
knowledge  of  pupils,  is  to  supply  definite  standards  and  to 
reveal  to  him  the  possibilities  of  the  crude  activities  of  the 
immature,  {i)  The  material  of  school  studies  translates  into 
concrete  and  detailed  terms  the  meanings  of  current  social 
life  which  it  is  desirable  to  transmit.  It  puts  clearly  before 
the  instructor  the  essential  ingredients  of  the  culture  to  be 
perpetuated,  in  such  an  organized  form  as  to  protect  him 
from  the  haphazard  efforts  he  would  be  Hkely  to  indulge  in 
if  the  meanings  had  not  been  standardized,  {ii)  A  knowledge 
of  the  ideas  which  have  been  achieved  in  the  past  as  the  out- 
come of  activity  places  the  educator  in  a  position  to  perceive 
the  meaning  of  the  seeming  impulsive  and  aimless  reactions 
of  the  young,  and  to  provide  the  stimuli  needed  to  direct 
them  so  that  they  will  amount  to  something.  The  more  the 
educator  knows  of  music  the  more  he  can  perceive  the  possi- 
bilities of  the  inchoate  musical  impulses  of  a  child.  Organized 
subject  matter  represents  the  ripe  fruitage  of  experiences  like 
theirs,  experiences  involving  the  same  world,  and  powers  and 
needs  similar  to  theirs.  It  does  not  represent  perfection  or 
infalHble  wisdom ;  but  it  is  the  best  at  command  to  further 
new  experiences  which  may,  in  some  respects  at  least,  surpass 
the  achievements  embodied  in  existing  knowledge  and  works 
of  art. 

From'  the  standpoint  of  the  educator,  in  other  words,  the 
various  studies  represent  working  resources,  available  capital. 
Their  remoteness  from  the  experience  of  the  young  is  not, 
however,  seeming;     it  is  real.    The  subject  matter  of  the 


The  Nature  of  Subject  Matter  215 

learner  is  not,  therefore,  it  cannot  be,  identical  with  the  formu- 
lated, the  crystalKzed,  and  systematized  subject  matter  of  the 
adult ;  the  material  as  found  in  books  and  in  works  of  art,  etc. 
The  latter  represents  the  possibilities  of  the  former;  not  its 
existing  state.  It  enters  directly  into  the  activities  of  the 
expert  and  the  educator,  not  into  that  of  the  beginner,  the 
learner.  Failure  to  bear  in  mind  the  difference  in  subject 
matter  from  the  respective  standpoints  of  teacher  and  student 
is  responsible  for  most  of  the  mistakes  made  in  the  use  of  texts 
and  other  expressions  of  preexistent  knowledge. 

The  need  for  a  knowledge  of  the  constitution  and  functions, 
in  the  concrete,  of  human  nature  is  great  just  because  the 
teacher's  attitude  to  subject  matter  is  so  different  from  that 
of  the  pupil.  The  teacher  presents  in  actuality  what  the 
pupil  represents  only  in  posse.  That  is,  the  teacher  already 
knows  the  things  which  the  student  is  only  learning.  Hence 
the  problem  of  the  two  is  radically  unHke.  When  engaged  in 
the  direct  act  of  teaching,  the  instructor  needs  to  have  subject 
matter  at  his  fingers'  ends ;  his  attention  should  be  upon  the 
attitude  and  response  of  the  pupil.  To  understand  the  latter 
in  its  interplay  with  subject  matter  is  his  task,  while  the  pupil's 
mind,  naturally,  should  be  not  on  itself  but  on  the  topic  in 
hand.  Or  to  state  the  same  point  in  a  somewhat  different 
manner :  the  teacher  should  be  occupied  not  with  subject 
matter  in  itself  but  in  its  interaction  with  the  pupil's  present 
needs  and  capacities.  Hence  simple  scholarship  is  not  enough. 
In  fact,  there  are  certain  features  of  scholarship  or  mastered 
subject  matter  —  taken  by  itself  —  which  get  in  the  way  of 
effective  teaching  unless  the  instructor's  habitual  attitude  is 
one  of  concern  with  its  interplay  in  the  pupil's  own  experi- 
ence. In  the  first  place,  his  knowledge  extends  indefinitely 
beyond  the  range  of  the  pupil's  acquaintance.  It  involves 
principles  which  are  beyond  the  immature  pupil's  understand- 
ing and  interest.  In  and  of  itself,  it  may  no  more  represent 
the  living  world  of  the  pupil's  experience  than  the  astronomer's 


2i6  Philosophy  of  Education 

knowledge  of  Mars  represents  a  baby's  acquaintance  with  the 
room  in  which  he  stays.  In  the  second  place,  the  method  of 
organization  of  the  material  of  achieved  scholarship  differs 
from  that  of  the  beginner.  It  is  not  true  that  the  experience 
of  the  young  is  unorganized  —  that  it  consists  of  isolated 
scraps.  But  it  is  organized  in  connection  with  direct  prac- 
tical centers  of  interest.  The  child's  home  is,  for  example,  the 
organizing  center  of  his  geographical  knowledge.  His  own 
movements  about  the  locaHty,  his  journeys  abroad,  the  tales 
of  his  friends,  give  the  ties  which  hold  his  items  of  informa- 
tion together.  But  the  geography  of  the  geographer,  of  the 
one  who  has  already  developed  the  impHcations  of  these  smaller 
experiences,  is  organized  on  the  basis  of  the  relationship 
which  the  various  facts  bear  to  one  another  —  not  the  relations 
which  they  bear  to  his  house,  bodily  movements,  and  friends. 
To  the  one  who  is  learned,  subject  matter  is  extensive,  accu- 
rately defined,  and  logically  interrelated.  To  the  one  who  is 
learning,  it  is  fluid,  partial,  and  connected  through  his  personal 
occupations.^  The  problem  of  teaching  is  to  keep  the  experi- 
ence of  the  student  moving  in  the  direction  of  what  the  expert 
already  knows.  Hence  the  need  that  the  teacher  know  both 
subject  matter  and  the  characteristic  needs  and  capacities  of 
the  student. 

2.  The  Development  of  Subject  Matter  in  the  Learner.  — 
It  is  possible,  without  doing  violence  to  the  facts,  to  mark  ofiF 
three  fairly  tj^ical  stages  in  the  growth  of  subject  matter  in 
the  experience  of  the  learner.  In  its  first  estate,  knowledge 
exists  as  the  content  of  inteUigent  abihty  —  power  to  do.  This 
kind  of  subject  matter,  or  known  material,  is  expressed  in 
familiarity  or  acquaintance  with  things.  Then  this  material 
gradually  is  surcharged  and  deepened  through  communicated 
knowledge  or  information.     Finally,  it  is  enlarged  and  worked 

*  Since  the  learned  man  should  also  still  be  a  learner,  it  will  be  understood 
that  these  contrasts  are  relative,  not  absolute.  But  in  the  earlier  stages  of 
learning  at  least  they  are  practically  all-important. 


The  Nature  of  Subject  Matter  217 

over  into  rationally  or  logically  organized  material  —  that  of 
he  one  who,  relatively  speaking,  is  expert  in  the  subject. 

I.  The  knowledge  which  comes  first  to  persons,  and  that 
remains  most  deeply  ingrained,  is  knowledge  of  how  to  do; 
how  to  walk,  talk,  read,  write,  skate,  ride  a  bicycle,  manage  a 
machine,  calculate,  drive  a  horse,  sell  goods,  manage  people, 
and  so  on  indefinitely.  The  popular  tendency  to  regard  in- 
stinctive acts  which  are  adapted  to  an  end  as  a  sort  of  miracu- 
lous knowledge,  while  unjustifiable,  is  evidence  of  the  strong 
tendency  to  identify  intelligent  control  of  the  means  of  action 
with  knowledge.  When  education,  under  the  influence  of  a 
scholastic  conception  of  knowledge  which  ignores  everything 
but  scientifically  formulated  facts  and  truths,  fails  to  recog- 
nize that  primary  or  initial  subject  matter  always  exists  as 
matter  of  an  active  doing,  involving  the  use  of  the  body  and 
the  handling  of  material,  the  subject  matter  of  instruction  is 
isolated  from  the  needs  and  purposes  of  the  learner,  and  so 
becomes  just  a  something  to  be  memorized  and  reproduced 
upon  demand.  Recognition  of  the  natural  course  of  develop^ 
ment,  on  the  contrary,  always  sets  out  with  situations  which 
involve  learning  by  doing.  Arts  and  occupations  form  the 
initial  stage  of  the  curriculum,  corresponding  as  they  do  to 
knowing  how  to  go  about  the  accompHshment  of  ends. 

Popular  terms  denoting  knowledge  have  always  retained 
the  connection  with  ability  in  action  lost  by  academic  philoso- 
phies. Ken  and  can  are  alKed  words.  Attention  means 
caring  for  a  thing,  in  the  sense  of  both  affection  and  of  looking 
out  for  its  welfare.  Mind  means  carrying  out  instructions  in 
action  —  as  a  child  minds  his  mother  —  and  taking  care  of 
something  —  as  a  nurse  minds  the  baby.  To  be  thoughtful, 
considerate,  means  to  heed  the  claims  of  others.  Apprehen- 
sion means  dread  of  undesirable  consequences,  as  well  as 
intellectual  grasp.  To  have  good  sense  or  judgment  is  to 
know  the  conduct  a  situation  calls  for;  discernment  is  not 
making  distinctions  for  the  sake  of  making  them,  an  exercise 


2i8  Philosophy  of  Education 

reprobated  as  hair  splitting,  but  is  insight  into  an  affair  with 
reference  to  acting.  Wisdom  has  never  lost  its  association 
with  the  proper  direction  of  Hfe.  Only  in  education,  never 
in  the  Hfe  of  farmer,  sailor,  merchant,  physician,  or  laboratory 
experimenter,  does  knowledge  mean  primarily  a  store  of  in- 
formation aloof  from  doing. 

Having  to  do  with  things  in  an  intelligent  way  issues  in 
acquaintance  or  familiarity.  The  things  we  are  best  ac- 
quainted with  are  the  things  we  put  to  frequent  use  —  such 
things  as  chairs,  tables,  pen,  paper,  clothes,  food,  knives  and 
forks  on  the  commonplace  level,  differentiating  into  more 
special  objects  according  to  a  person's  occupations  in  life. 
Knowledge  of  tilings  in  that  intimate  and  emotional  sense 
suggested  by  the  word  acquaintance  is  a  precipitate  from  our 
employing  them  with  a  purpose.  We  have  acted  with  or 
Mpon  the  thing  so  frequently  that  we  can  anticipate  how  it 
will  act  and  react  —  such  is  the  meaning  of  familiar  acquaint- 
ance. We  are  ready  for  a  famihar  thing;  it  does  not  catch 
us  napping,  or  play  unexpected  tricks  with  us.  This  attitude 
carries  with  it  a  sense  of  congeniality  or  friendlinesb,  of  ease 
and  illumination ;  while  the  things  with  which  we  are  not 
accustomed  to  deal  are  strange,  foreign,  cold,  remote,  "  ab- 
stract." 

II.  But  it  is  likely  that  elaborate  statements  regarding  this 
primary  stage  of  knowledge  will  darken  understanding.  It 
includes  practically  all  of  our  knowledge  which  is  not  the  result 
of  deliberate  technical  study.  Modes  of  purposeful  doing  in- 
cludes dealings  with  persons  as  well  as  things.  Impulses  of 
communication  and  habits  of  intercourse  have  to  be  adapted 
to  maintaining  successful  connections  with  others;  a  large 
fund  of  social  knowledge  accrues.  As  a  part  of  this  intercom- 
munication one  learns  much  from  others.  They  tell  of  their 
experiences  and  of  the  experiences  which,  in  turn,  have  been 
told  them.  In  so  far  as  one  is  interested  or  concerned  in  these 
communications,  their  matter  becomes  a  Dart  of  one's  own 


The  Nature  of  Subject  Matter  219 

experience.  Active  connections  with  others  are  such  an  in- 
timate and  vital  part  of  our  own  concerns  that  it  is  impossible 
to  draw  sharp  lines,  such  as  would  enable  us  to  say,  "  Here  my 
experience  ends;  there  yours  begins."  In  so  far  as  we  are 
partners  in  common  undertakings,  the  things  which  others 
communicate  to  us  as  the  consequences  of  their  particular  share 
in  the  enterprise  blend  at  once  into  the  experience  resulting 
from  our  own  special  doings.  The  ear  is  as  much  an  organ  of 
experience  as  the  eye  or  hand ;  the  eye  is  available  for  reading 
reports  of  what  happens  beyond  its  horizon.  Things  remote 
in  space  and  time  affect  the  issue  of  our  actions  quite  as  much 
as  things  which  we  can  smell  and  handle.  They  really  concern 
us,  and,  consequently,  any  account  of  them  which  assists  us  in 
dealing  with  things  at  hand  falls  within  personal  experience. 

Information  is  the  name  usually  given  to  this  kind  of  sub- 
ject matter.  The  place  of  communication  in  personal  doing 
supphes  us  with  a  criterion  for  estimating  the  value  of  informa- 
tional material  in  school.  Does  it  grow  naturally  out  of  some 
question  with  which  the  student  is  concerned?  Does  it  fit 
into  his  more  direct  acquaintance  so  as  to  increase  its  efficacy 
and  deepen  its  meaning?  If  it  meets  these  two  requirements, 
it  is  educative.  The  amount  heard  or  read  is  of  no  importance 
— the  more  the  better,  provided  the  student  has  a  need  for  it 
and  can  apply  it  in  some  situation  of  his  own. 

But  it  is  not  so  easy  to  fulfill  these  requirements  in  actual 
practice  as  it  is  to  lay  them  down  in  theory.  The  extension  in 
modem  times  of  the  area  of  interconamunication ;  the  inven- 
tion of  appKances  for  securing  acquaintance  with  remote  parts 
of  the  heavens  and  bygone  events  of  history ;  the  cheapening 
of  devices,  like  printing,  for  recording  and  distributing  infor- 
mation —  genuine  and  alleged  —  have  created  an  immense 
bulk  of  commimicated  subject  matter.  It  is  much  easier  to 
swamp  a  pupil  with  this  than  to  work  it  into  his  direct  ex- 
periences. All  too  frequently  it  forms  another  strange  world 
which  just  overlies  the  world  of  personal  acquaintance.     The 


220  Philosophy  oj  Education 

sole  problem  of  the  student  is  to  leam,  for  school  purposes, 
for  purposes  of  recitations  and  promotions,  the  constituent 
parts  of  this  strange  world.  Probably  the  most  conspicuous 
connotation  of  the  word  knowledge  for  most  persons  to-day  is 
just  the  body  of  facts  and  truths  ascertained  by  others ;  the 
material  found  in  the  rows  and  rows  of  atlases,  cyclopedias, 
histories,  biographies,  books  of  travel,  scientific  treatises,  on 
the  shelves  of  libraries. 

The  imposing  stupendous  bulk  of  this  material  has  uncon- 
sciously influenced  men's  notions  of  the  nature  of  knowledge 
itself.  The  statements,  the  propositions,  in  which  knowledge, 
the  issue  of  active  concern  with  problems,  is  deposited,  are 
taken  to  be  themselves  knowledge.  The  record  of  knowl- 
edge, independent  of  its  place  as  an  outcome  of  inquiry  and  a 
resource  in  further  inquiry,  is  taken  to  be  knowledge.  The 
mind  of  man  is  taken  captive  by  the  spoils  of  its  prior  vic- 
tories ;  the  spoils,  not  the  weapons  and  the  acts  of  waging  the 
battle  against  the  unknown,  are  used  to  fix  the  meaning  of 
knowledge,  of  fact,  and  truth. 

If  this  identification  of  knowledge  with  propositions  stating 
information  has  fastened  itself  upon  logicians  and  philosophers, 
it  is  not  surprising  that  the  same  ideal  has  almost  dominated 
instruction.  The  "  course  of  study  "  consists  largely  of  in- 
formation distributed  into  various  branches  of  study,  each 
study  being  subdivided  into  lessons  presenting  in  serial  cut- 
off portions  of  the  total  store.  In  the  seventeenth  century, 
the  store  was  still  small  enough  so  that  men  set  up  the  ideal  of 
a  complete  encyclopedic  mastery  of  it.  It  is  now  so  bulky 
that  the  impossibility  of  any  one  man's  coming  into  possession 
of  it  aU  is  obvious.  But  the  educational  ideal  has  not  been 
much  affected.  Acquisition  of  a  modicum  of  information  in 
each  branch  of  learning,  or  at  least  in  a  selected  group,  remains 
the  principle  by  which  the  curriculum,  from  elementary  school 
through  college,  is  formed ;  the  easier  portions  being  assigned 
to  the  earUer  years,  the  more  difficult  to  the  later. 


The  Nature  of  Subject  Matter  221 

The  complaints  of  educators  that  learning  does  not  enter 
into  character  and  affect  conduct ;  the  protests  against  me- 
moriter  work,  against  cramming,  against  gradgrind  preoccupa- 
tion with  "  facts,"  against  devotion  to  wire-drawn  distinctions 
and  ill-understood  rules  and  principles,  all  follow  from  this 
state  of  affairs.  Knowledge  which  is  mainly  second-hand, 
other  men's  knowledge,  tends  to  become  merely  verbal.  It  is 
no  objection  to  information  that  it  is  clothed  in  words ;  com- 
munication necessarily  takes  place  through  words.  But  in 
the  degree  in  which  what  is  communicated  cannot  be  or- 
ganized into  the  existing  experience  of  the  learner,  it  becomes 
mere  words :  that  is,  pure  sense-stimuli,  lacking  in  mean- 
ing. Then  it  operates  to  call  out  mechanical  reactions,  ability 
to  use  the  vocal  organs  to  repeat  statements,  or  the  hand  to 
write  or  to  do  "  sums." 

To  be  informed  is  to  be  posted ;  it  is  to  have  at  command 
the  subject  matter  needed  for  an  effective  dealing  with  a 
problem,  and  for  giving  added  significance  to  the  search  for 
solution  and  to  the  solution  itself.  Informational  knowledge 
is  the  material  which  can  be  fallen  back  upon  as  given,  settled, 
estabHshed,  assured  in  a  doubtful  situation.  It  is  a  kind  of 
bridge  for  mind  in  its  passage  from  doubt  to  discovery.  It  has 
the  office  of  an  intellectual  middleman.  It  condenses  and 
records  in  available  form  the  net  results  of  the  prior  experi- 
ences of  mankind,  as  an  agency  of  enhancing  the  meaning  of 
new  experiences.  When  one  is  told  that  Brutus  assassinated 
Caesar,  or  that  the  length  of  the  year  is  three  hundred  sixty- 
five  and  one  fourth  days,  or  that  the  ratio  of  the  diameter 
of  the  circle  to  its  circumference  is  3. 141 5  .  .  .  one  receives  what 
is  indeed  knowledge  for  others,  but  for  him  it  is  a  stimulus  to 
knowing.  His  acquisition  of  knowledge  depends  upon  his 
response  to  what  is  communicated. 

3.  Science  or  Rationalized  Knowledge.  —  Science  is  a  name 
for  knowledge  in  its  most  characteristic  form.  It  represents 
in  its  degree,  the  perfected  outcome  of  learning,  — its  consum- 


222  Philosophy  of  Education 

mation.  What  is  known,  in  a  given  case,  is  what  is  sure,  cer- 
tain, settled,  disposed  of;  that  which  we  think  with  rather 
than  that  which  we  think  about.  In  its  honorable  sense, 
knowledge  is  distinguished  from  opinion,  guesswork,  specula- 
tion, and  mere  tradition.  In  knowledge,  things  are  ascertained; 
they  are  so  and  not  dubiously  otherwise.  But  experience 
makes  us  aware  that  there  is  difference  between  intellectual 
certainty  of  subject  matter  and  our  certainty.  We  are  made,  so 
to  speak,  for  belief ;  credulity  is  natural.  The  undisciplined 
mind  is  averse  to  suspense  and  intellectual  hesitation;  it  is 
prone  to  assertion.  It  likes  things  undisturbed,  settled,  and 
treats  them  as  such  without  due  warrant.  Familiarity,  com- 
mon repute,  and  congeniaHty  to  desire  are  readily  made  meas- 
uring rods  of  truth.  Ignorance  gives  way  to  opinionated  and 
current  error,  —  a  greater  foe  to  learning  than  ignorance  itself. 
A  Socrates  is  thus  led  to  declare  that  consciousness  of  igno- 
rance is  the  beginning  of  effective  love  of  wisdom,  and  a  Des- 
cartes to  say  that  science  is  bom  of  doubting. 

We  have  already  dwelt  upon  the  fact  that  subject  matter, 
or  data,  and  ideas  have  to  have  their  worth  tested  experi- 
mentally: that  in  themselves  they  are  tentative  and  provi- 
sional. Our  predilection  for  premature  acceptance  and  as- 
sertion, our  aversion  to  suspended  judgment,  are  signs  that  we 
tend  naturally  to  cut  short  the  process  of  testing.  We  are 
satisfied  with  superficial  and  immediate  short-visioned  ap- 
plications. If  these  work  out  with  moderate  satisfactoriness, 
we  are  content  to  suppose  that  our  assumptions  have  been 
confirmed.  Even  in  the  case  of  failure,  we  are  inclined  to 
put  the  blame  not  on  the  inadequacy  and  incorrectness  of  our 
data  and  thoughts,  but  upon  our  hard  luck  and  the  hostility 
of  circumstance.  We  charge  the  evil  consequence  not  to  the 
error  of  our  schemes  and  our  incomplete  inquiry  into  con- 
ditions (thereby  getting  material  for  revising  the  former 
and  stimulus  for  extending  the  latter)  but  to  untoward 
fate.    We  even  plume  ourselves  upon  our  firmness  in  cling- 


The  Nature  of  Subject  Matter  223 

ing  to  our  conceptions  in  spite  of  the  way  in  which  they 
work  out. 

Science  represents  the  safeguard  of  the  race  against  these 
natural  propensities  and  the  evils  which  flow  from  them.  It 
consists  of  the  special  apphances  and  methods  which  the  race 
has  slowly  worked  out  in  order  to  conduct  reflection  under 
conditions  whereby  its  procedures  and  results  are  tested.  It 
is  artificial  (an  acquired  art),  not  spontaneous;  learned,  not 
native.  To  this  fact  is  due  the  unique,  the  invaluable  place  of 
science  in  education,  and  also  the  dangers  which  threaten  its 
right  use.  Without  initiation  into  the  scientific  spirit  one  is 
not  in  possession  of  the  best  tools  which  humanity  has  so  far 
devised  for  effectively  directed  reflection.  One  in  that  case  not 
merely  conducts  inquiry  and  learning  without  the  use  of  the 
best  instruments,  but  fails  to  understand  the  full  meaning 
of  knowledge.  For  he  does  not  become  acquainted  with  the 
traits  that  mark  off  opinion  and  assent  from  authorized  con- 
viction. On  the  other  hand,  the  fact  that  science  marks  the 
perfecting  of  knowing  in  highly  specialized  conditions  of 
technique  renders  its  results,  taken  by  themselves,  remote 
from  ordinary  experience  —  a  quality  of  aloofness  that  is 
popularly  designated  by  the  term  abstract.  When  this  isola- 
tion appears  in  instruction,  scientific  information  is  even  more 
exposed  to  the  dangers  attendant  upon  presenting  ready-made 
subject  matter  than  are  other  forms  of  information. 

Science  has  been  defined  in  terms  of  method  of  inquiry  and 
testing.  At  first  sight,  this  definition  may  seem  opposed  to 
the  current  conception  that  science  is  organized  or  systema- 
tized knowledge.  The  opposition,  however,  is  only  seeming, 
and  disappears  when  the  ordinary  definition  is  completed. 
Not  organization  but  the  kind  of  organization  effected  by  ade- 
quate methods  of  tested  discovery  marks  off  science.  The 
knowledge  of  a  farmer  is  systematized  in  the  degree  in  which  he 
is  competent.  It  is  organized  on  the  basis  of  relation  of  means 
to  ends  —  practically  organized.     Its  organization  as  knowl- 


224  Philosophy  of  Education 

edge  (that  is,  in  the  eulogistic  sense  of  adequately  tested  and 
confirmed)  is  incidental  to  its  organization  with  reference  to 
securing  crops,  live-stock,  etc.  But  scientific  subject  matter 
is  organized  with  specific  reference  to  the  successful  conduct  of 
the  enterprise  of  discovery,  to  knowing  as  a  specialized  under- 
taking. 

Reference  to  the  kind  of  assurance  attending  science  will 
shed  light  upon  this  statement.  It  is  rational  assurance,  — 
logical  warranty.  The  ideal  of  scientific  organization  is, 
therefore,  that  every  conception  and  statement  shall  be  of 
such  a  kind  as  to  follow  from  others  and  to  lead  to  others. 
Concepts  and  propositions  mutually  imply  and  support  one 
another.  This  double  relation  of  ''  leading  to  and  confirming  " 
is  what  is  meant  by  the  terms  logical  and  rational.  The  every- 
day conception  of  water  is  more  available  for  ordinary  uses  of 
drinking,  washing,  irrigation,  etc.,  than  the  chemist's  notion 
of  it.  The  latter's  description  of  it  as  H2O  is  superior  from  the 
standpoint  of  place  and  use  in  inquiry.  It  states  the  nature 
of  water  in  a  way  which  connects  it  with  knowledge  of  other 
things,  indicating  to  one  who  understands  it  how  the  knowl- 
edge is  arrived  at  and  its  bearings  upon  other  portions  of 
knowledge  of  the  structure  of  things.  Strictly  speaking,  it 
does  not  indicate  the  objective  relations  of  water  any  more  than 
does  a  statement  that  water  is  transparent,  fluid,  without  taste 
or  odor,  satisfying  to  thirst,  etc.  It  is  just  as  true  that  water 
has  these  relations  as  that  it  is  constituted  by  two  molecules  of 
hydrogen  in  combination  with  one  of  oxygen.  But  for  the 
particular  purpose  of  conducting  discovery  with  a  view  to 
ascertainment  of  fact,  the  latter  relations  are  fundamental. 
The  more  one  emphasizes  organization  as  a  mark  of  science, 
then,  the  more  he  is  committed  to  a  recognition  of  the  primacy 
of  method  in  the  definition  of  science.  For  method  defines 
the  kind  of  organization  in  virtue  of  which  science  is  science. 

4.  Subject  Matter  as  Social.  —  Our  next  chapters  will  take 
u})  various  school  activities  and  studies  and  discuss  them  as 


The  Nature  of  Subject  Matter  225 

successive  stages  in  that  evolution  of  knowledge  which  we  have 
just  been  discussing.  It  remains  to  say  a  few  words  upon 
subject  matter  as  social,  since  our  prior  remarks  have  been 
mainly  concerned  with  its  intellectual  aspect.  A  difference  in 
breadth  and  depth  exists  even  in  vital  knowledge ;  even  in  the 
data  and  ideas  which  are  relevant  to  real  problems  and  which 
are  motivated  by  purposes.  For  there  is  a  difference  in  the 
social  scope  of  purposes  and  the  social  importance  of  problems. 
With  the  wide  range  of  possible  material  to  select  from,  it  is 
important  that  education  (especially  in  all  its  phases  short  of 
the  most  specialized)  should  use  a  criterion  of  social  worth. 

All  information  and  systematized  scientific  subject  matter 
have  been  worked  out  under  the  conditions  of  social  life  and 
have  been  transmitted  by  social  means.  But  this  does  not 
prove  that  all  is  of  equal  value  for  the  purposes  of  forming 
the  disposition  and  supplying  the  equipment  of  members  of 
present  society.  The  scheme  of  a  curriculum  must  take 
account  of  the  adaptation  of  studies  to  the  needs  of  the  exist- 
ing community  life ;  it  must  select  with  the  intention  of  im- 
proving the  Hfe  we  hve  in  common  so  that  the  future  shall  be 
better  than  the  past.  Moreover,  the  curriculum  must  be 
planned  with  reference  to  placing  essentials  first,  and  refine- 
ments second.  The  things  which  are  socially  most  funda- 
mental, that  is,  which  have  to  do  with  the  experiences  in  which 
the  widest  groups  share,  are  the  essentials.  The  things  which 
represent  the  needs  of  specialized  groups  and  technical  pur- 
suits are  secondary.  There  is  truth  in  the  saying  that  educa- 
tion must  first  be  human  and  only  after  that  professional. 
But  those  who  utter  the  saying  frequently  have  in  mind  in 
the  term  human  only  a  highly  specialized  class :  the  class  of 
learned  men  who  preserve  the  classic  traditions  of  the  past. 
They  forget  that  material  is  humanized  in  the  degree  in  which 
it  connects  with  the  common  interests  of  men  as  men. 

Democratic  society  is  pecuHarly  dependent  for  its  main- 
tenance upon  the  use  in  forming  a  course  of  study  of  criteria 
o 


^26  Philosophy  of  Education 

which  are  broadly  human.  Democracy  cannot  flourish  where 
the  chief  influences  in  selecting  subject  matter  of  instruction 
are  utilitarian  ends  narrowly  conceived  for  the  masses,  and, 
for  the  higher  education  of  the  few,  the  traditions  of  a 
specialized  cultivated  class.  The  notion  that  the  "  essentials  " 
of  elementary  education  are  the  three  R's  mechanically  treated, 
is  based  upon  ignorance  of  the  essentials  needed  for  reali- 
zation of  democratic  ideals.  Unconsciously  it  assumes  that 
these  ideals  are  unrealizable ;  it  assumes  that  in  the  future, 
as  in  the  past,  getting  a  HveHhood,  "  making  a  Hving,"  must 
signify  for  most  men  and  women  doing  things  which  are  not 
significant,  freely  chosen,  and  ennobling  to  those  who  do  them ; 
doing  things  which  serve  ends  unrecognized  by  those  engaged 
in  them,  carried  on  under  the  direction  of  others  for  the  sake 
of  ^iecuniary  reward.  For  preparation  of  large  numbers  for  a 
life  of  this  sort,  and  only  for  this  purpose,  are  mechanical 
efficiency  in  reading,  writing,  spelling  and  figuring,  together 
with  attainment  of  a  certain  amount  of  muscular  dexterity, 
*  essentials.'  Such  conditions  also  infect  the  education  called 
liberal,  with  illiberaHty.  They  imply  a  somewhat  parasitic 
cultivation  bought  at  the  expense  of  not  having  the  enHghten- 
ment  and  discipline  which  come  from  concern  with  the  deepest 
problems  of  common  humanity.  A  curriculum  which  acknowl-. 
edges  the  social  responsibilities  of  education  must  present 
situations  where  problems  are  relevant  to  the  problems  of 
living  together,  and  where  observation  and  information  are 
calculated  to  develop  social  insight  and  interest. 

Summary.  —  The  subject  matter  of  education  consists 
primarily  of  the  meanings  which  supply  content  to  existing 
social  life.  The  continuity  of  social  life  means  that  many  of 
these  meanings  are  contributed  to  present  activity  by  past 
collective  experience.  As  social  life  grows  more  complex, 
these  factors  increase  in  number  and  import.  There  is  need 
of  special  selection,  formulation,  and  organization  in  order  that 
they  may  be  adequately  transmitted  to  the  new  generation. 


The  Nature  of  Subject  Matter  227 

But  this  very  process  tends  to  set  up  subject  matter  as  some- 
thing of  value  just  by  itself,  apart  from  its  function  in  pro- 
moting the  realization  of  the  meanings  implied  in  the  present 
experience  of  the  immature.  Especially  is  the  educator  ex- 
posed to  the  temptation  to  conceive  his  task  in  terms  of  the 
pupil's  ability  to  appropriate  and  reproduce  the  subject  matter 
in  set  statements,  irrespective  of  its  organization  into  his 
activities  as  a  developing  social  member.  The  positive  prin- 
ciple is  maintained  when  the  young  begin  with  active  occupa- 
tions having  a  social  origin  and  use,  and  proceed  to  a  scientific 
insight  in  the  materials  and  laws  involved,  through  assimilat- 
ing into  their  more  direct  experience  the  ideas  and  facts 
communicated  by  others  who  have  had  a  larger  experience. 


CHAPTER  XV 

PLAY  AND  WORK  IN   THE   CURRICULUM 

1.   The  Place  of  Active  Occupations  in  Education.  —  In 

consequence  partly  of  the  efforts  of  educational  reformers, 
partly  of  increased  interest  in  child-psychology,  and  partly 
of  the  direct  experience  of  the  schoolroom,  the  course  of 
study  has  in  the  past  generation  undergone  considerable  modi- 
fication. The  desirability  of  starting  from  and  with  the  ex- 
perience and  capacities  of  learners,  a  lesson  enforced  from  all 
three  quarters,  has  led  to  the  introduction  of  forms  of  activity, 
in  play  and  work,  similar  to  those  in  which  children  and  youth 
engage  outside  of  school.  Modern  psychology  has  substituted 
for  the  general,  ready-made  faculties  of  older  theory  a  complex 
group  of  instinctive  and  impulsive  tendencies.  Experience  has 
shown  that  when  children  have  a  chance  at  physical  activities 
which  bring  their  natural  impulses  into  play,  going  to  school 
is  a  joy,  management  is  less  of  a  burden,  and  learning  is 
easier. 

Sometimes,  perhaps,  plays,  games,  and  constructive  occupa- 
tions are  resorted  to  only  for  these  reasons,  with  emphasis 
upon  relief  from  the  tedium  and  strain  of  "  regular  "  school 
work.  There  is  no  reason,  however,  for  using  them  merely  as 
agreeable  diversions.  Study  of  mental  life  has  made  evident 
the  fundamental  worth  of  native  tendencies  to  explore,  to  ma- 
nipulate tools  and  materials,  to  construct,  to  give  expression  to 
joyous  emotion,  etc.  When  exercises  which  are  prompted  by 
these  instincts  are  a  part  of  the  regular  school  program,  the 
whole  pupil  is  engaged,  the  artificial  gap  between  fife  in 
sc^hool  and  out  is  reduced,  motives  are  afforded  for  attentior 

2li 


Play  and  Work  in  the  Curriculum  22y 

to  a  large  variety  of  materials  and  processes  distinctly  educa- 
tive in  effect,  and  cooperative  associations  which  give  informa- 
tion a  social  setting  are  provided.  In  short,  the  gromids  for 
assigning  to  play  and  active  work  a  dej&nite  place  in  the  cur- 
riculum are  intellectual  and  social,  not  matters  of  temporary  ex- 
pediency and  momentary  agreeableness.  Without  something 
of  the  kind,  it  is  not  possible  to  secure  the  normal  estate  of 
effective  learning ;  namely,  that  knowledge-getting  be  an  out- 
growth of  activities  having  their  own  end,  instead  of  a  school 
task.  More  specifically,  play  and  work  correspond,  point  for 
point,  with  the  traits  of  the  initial  stage  of  knowing,  which  con- 
sists, as  we  saw  in  the  last  chapter,  in  learning  how  to  do  things 
and  in  acquaintance  with  things  and  processes  gained  in  the  do- 
ing. It  is  suggestive  that  among  the  Greeks,  till  the  rise  of 
conscious  philosophy,  the  same  word,  Tex^ri,  was  used  for  art  and 
science.  Plato  gave  his  account  of  knowledge  on  the  basis  of 
an  analysis  of  the  knowledge  of  cobblers,  carpenters,  players 
of  musical  instruments,  etc.,  pointing  out  that  their  art  (so  far 
as  it  was  not  mere  routine)  involved  an  end,  mastery  of  material 
or  stuff  worked  upon,  control  of  appliances,  and  a  definite 
order  of  procedure  —  all  of  which  had  to  be  known  in  order 
that  there  be  intelligent  skill  or  art. 

Doubtless  the  fact  that  children  normally  engage  in  play  and 
work  out  of  school  has  seemed  to  many  educators  a  reason  why 
they  should  concern  themselves  in  school  with  things  radically 
different.  School  time  seemed  too  precious  to  spend  in  doing 
over  again  what  children  were  sure  to  do  any  way.  In  some 
social  conditions,  this  reason  has  weight.  In  pioneer  times,  for 
example,  outside  occupations  gave  a  definite  and  valuable  in- 
tellectual and  moral  training.  Books  and  everything  con- 
cerned with  them  were,  on  the  other  hand,  rare  and  difi&cult 
of  access ;  they  were  the  only  means  of  outlet  from  a  narrow 
and  crude  environment.  Wherever  such  conditions  obtain, 
much  may  be  said  in  favor  of  concentrating  school  activity 
upon  books.     The  situation  is  very  different,  however,  in  most 


230  Philosophy  of  Ediication 

communities  to-day.  The  kinds  of  work  in  which  the  young 
can  engage,  especially  in  cities,  are  largely  anti-educational. 
That  prevention  of  child  labor  is  a  social  duty  is  evidence  on 
this  point.  On  the  other  hand,  printed  matter  has  been  so 
Itheapened  and  is  in  such  universal  circulation,  and  all  the  op- 
portunities of  intellectual  culture  have  been  so  multiphed, 
that  the  older  type  of  book  work  is  far  from  having  the  force 
it  used  to  possess. 

But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  an  educational  result  is  a 
by-product  of  play  and  work  in  most  out-of-school  conditions. 
It  is  incidental,  not  primary.  Consequently  the  educative 
growth  secured  is  more  or  less  accidental.  Much  work  shares 
in  the  defects  of  existing  industrial  society — defects  next  to 
fatal  to  right  development.  Play  tends  to  reproduce  and 
affirm  the  crudities,  as  well  as  the  excellencies,  of  surrounding 
adult  Hfe.  It  is  the  business  of  the  school  to  set  up  an  environ- 
ment in  which  play  and  work  shall  be  conducted  with  refer- 
ence to  facihtating  desirable  mental  and  moral  growth.  It  is 
not  enough  just  to  introduce  plays  and  games,  hand  work  and 
manual  exercises.  Everything  depends  upon  the  way  in  which 
they  are  employed. 

2.  Available  Occupations.  —  A  bare  catalogue  of  the  list  of 
activities  which  have  already  found  their  way  into  schools 
indicates  what  a  rich  field  is  at  hand.  There  is  work  with 
paper,  cardboard,  wood,  leather,  cloth,  yams,  clay  and  sand, 
and  the  metals,  with  and  without  tools.  Processes  employed 
are  folding,  cutting,  pricking,  measuring,  molding,  modeling, 
pattern-making,  heating  and  cooling,  and  the  operations 
characteristic  of  such  tools  as  the  hammer,  saw,  file,  etc. 
Outdoor  excursions,  gardening,  cooking,  sewing,  printing, 
book-binding,  weaving,  painting,  drawing,  singing,  dramatiza- 
tion, story-telUng,  reading  and  writing  as  active  pursuits  with 
social  aims  (not  as  mere  exercises  for  acquiring  skill  for  future 
use),  in  addition  to  a  countless  variety  of  plays  and  games, 
designate  some  of  the  modes  of  occupation. 


Play  and  Work  in  the  Curriculum  231 

The  problem  of  the  educator  is  to  engage  pupils  in  these 
activities  in  such  ways  that  while  manual  skill  and  technical 
efficiency  are  gained  and  immediate  satisfaction  found  in  the 
work,  together  with  preparation  for  later  usefulness,  these 
things  shall  be  subordinated  to  education  —  that  is,  to  intel- 
lectual results  and  the  forming  of  a  socialized  disposition. 
What  does  this  principle  signify? 

In  the  first  place,  the  principle  rules  out  certain  practices. 
Activities  which  follow  definite  prescription  and  dictation  or 
which  reproduce  without  modification  ready-made  models, 
may  give  muscular  dexterity,  but  they  do  not  require  the  per- 
ception and  elaboration  of  ends,  nor  (what  is  the  same  thing 
in  other  words)  do  they  permit  the  use  of  judgment  in  selecting 
and  adapting  means.  Not  merely  manual  training  specifically 
so-called  but  many  traditional  kindergarten  exercises  have 
erred  here.  Moreover,  opportunity  for  making  mistakes  is  an 
incidental  requirement.  Not  because  mistakes  are  ever  de- 
sirable, but  because  overzeal  to  select  material  and  appli- 
ances which  forbid  a  chance  for  mistakes  to  occur,  restricts  in- 
itiative, reduces  judgment  to  a  minimum,  and  compels  the  use 
of  methods  which  are  so  remote  from  the  complex  situations 
of  life  that  the  power  gained  is  of  little  availability.  It  is 
quite  true  that  children  tend  to  exaggerate  their  powers  of 
execution  and  to  select  projects  that  are  beyond  them.  But 
limitation  of  capacity  is  one  of  the  things  which  has  to  be 
learned ;  like  other  things,  it  is  learned  through  the  experi- 
ence of  consequences.  The  danger  that  children  imdertaking 
too  complex  projects  will  simply  muddle  and  mess,  and  pro- 
duce not  merely  crude  results  (which  is  a  minor  matter)  but 
acquire  crude  standards  (which  is  an  important  matter)  is 
great.  But  it  is  the  fault  of  the  teacher  if  the  pupil  does  not 
perceive  in  due  season  the  inadequacy  of  his  performances, 
and  thereby  receive  a  stimulus  to  attempt  exercises  which  will 
perfect  his  powers.  Meantime  it  is  more  important  to 
keep  alive  a  creative  and  constructive  attitude  than  to  secure 


232  Philosophy  of  Education 

an  external  perfection  by  engaging  the  pupil's  action  in  too 
minute  and  too  closely  regulated  pieces  of  work.  Accuracy 
and  finish  of  detail  can  be  insisted  upon  in  such  portions  of  a 
complex  work  as  are  within  the  pupil's  capacity. 

Unconscious  suspicion  of  native  experience  and  consequent 
overdoing  of  external  control  are  shown  quite  as  much  in  the 
material  supplied  as  in  the  matter  of  the  teacher's  orders.  The 
fear  of  raw  material  is  shown  in  laboratory,  manual  training 
shop,  Froebelian  kindergarten,  and  Montessori  house  of  child- 
hood. The  demand  is  for  materials  which  have  already  been 
subjected  to  the  perfecting  work  of  mind :  a  demand  which 
shows  itself  in  the  subject  matter  of  active  occupations  quite 
as  well  as  in  academic  book  learning.  That  such  material  will 
control  the  pupil's  operations  so  as  to  prevent  errors  is  true. 
The  notion  that  a  pupil  operating  with  such  material  will 
somehow  absorb  the  intelligence  that  went  originally  to  its 
shaping  is  fallacious.  Only  by  starting  with  crude  material 
and  subjecting  it  to  purposeful  handling  will  he  gain  the  in- 
telligence embodied  in  finished  material.  In  practice,  over- 
emphasis upon  formed  material  leads  to  an  exaggeration  of 
mathematical  quaHties,  since  intellect  finds  its  profit  in  phys- 
ical things  from  matters  of  size,  form,  and  proportion  and  the 
relations  that  flow  from  them.  But  these  are  known  only 
when  their  perception  is  a  fruit  of  acting  upon  purposes  which 
require  attention  to  them.  The  more  human  the  purpose,  or  the 
more  it  approximates  the  ends  which  appeal  in  daily  experience, 
the  more  real  the  knowledge.  When  the  purpose  of  the  ac- 
tivity is  restricted  to  ascertaining  these  qualities,  the  resulting 
knowledge  is  only  technical. 

To  say  that  active  occupations  should  be  concerned  pri- 
marily with  wholes  is  another  statement  of  the  same  principle. 
Wholes  for  purposes  of  education  are  not,  however,  physical 
affairs.  Intellectually  the  existence  of  a  whole  depends  upon  a 
concern  or  interest ;  it  is  qualitative,  the  completeness  of  ap- 
peal made  by  a  situation.     Exaggerated  devotion  to  formation 


Play  and  Work  in  the  Curriculum  233 

of  efficient  skill  irrespective  of  present  purpose  always  shows  it- 
self in  devising  exercises  isolated  from  a  purpose.  Laboratory 
work  is  made  to  consist  of  tasks  of  accurate  measurement  with 
a  view  to  acquiring  knowledge  of  the  fundamental  units  of 
physics,  irrespective  of  contact  with  the  problems  which  make 
these  units  important;  or  of  operations  designed  to  afford 
facility  in  the  manipulation  of  experimental  apparatus.  The 
technique  is  acquired  independently  of  the  purposes  of  discovery 
and  testing  which  alone  give  it  meaning.  Kindergarten  em- 
ployments are  calculated  to  give  information  regarding  cubes, 
spheres,  etc.,  and  to  form  certain  habits  of  manipulation  of( 
material  (for  everything  must  always  be  done  "  just  so  "),  the 
absence  of  more  vital  purposes  being  supposedly  compensated 
for  by  the  alleged  symbolism  of  the  material  used.  Manual 
training  is  reduced  to  a  series  of  ordered  assignments  calcu- 
lated to  secure  the  mastery  of  one  tool  after  another  and  tech- 
nical ability  in  the  various  elements  of  construction  —  Uke  the 
different  joints.  It  is  argued  that  pupils  must  know  how  to 
use  tools  before  they  attack  actual  making,  —  assuming  that 
pupils  cannot  learn  how  in  the  process  of  making.  Pestalozzi's 
just  insistence  upon  the  active  use  of  the  senses,  as  a  substitute 
for  memorizing  words,  left  behind  it  in  practice  schemes  for 
"  object  lessons  "  intended  to  acquaint  pupils  with  all  the 
qualities  of  selected  objects.  The  error  is  the  same :  in  all  these 
cases  it  is  assumed  that  before  objects  can  be  intelligently 
used,  their  properties  must  be  known.  In  fact,  the  senses  are 
normally  used  in  the  course  of  intelligent  (that  is,  purposeful) 
use  of  things,  since  the  qualities  perceived  are  factors  to  be 
reckoned  with  in  accompHshment.  Witness  the  different  at- 
titude of  a  boy  in  making,  say,  a  kite,  with  respect  to  the  grain 
and  other  properties  of  wood,  the  matter  of  size,  angles, 
and  proportion  of  parts,  to  the  attitude  of  a  pupil  who  has 
an  object-lesson  on  a  piece  of  wood,  where  the  sole  function 
of  wood  and  its  properties  is  to  serve  as  subject  matter  for 
the  lesson. 


234  Philosophy  of  Ediication 

The  failure  to  realize  that  the  functional  development  of  a 
situation  alone  constitutes  a  '  whole '  for  the  purpose  of  mind  is 
the  cause  of  the  false  notions  which  have  prevailed  in 
instruction  concerning  the  simple  and  the  complex.  For 
the  person  approaching  a  subject,  the  simple  thing  is  his  pur- 
pose —  the  use  he  desires  to  make  of  material,  tool,  or  technical 
process,  no  matter  how  complicated  the  process  of  execution 
may  be.  The  unity  of  the  purpose,  with  the  concentration 
upon  details  which  it  entails,  confers  simpHcity  upon  the  ele- 
ments which  have  to  be  reckoned  with  in  the  course  of  action. 
It  furnishes  each  with  a  single  meaning  according  to  its  service 
in  carrying  on  the  whole  enterprise.  After  one  has  gone 
through  the  process,  the  constituent  qualities  and  relations  are 
elements,  each  possessed  with  a  definite  meaning  of  its  own. 
The  false  notion  referred  to  takes  the  standpoint  of  the  expert, 
the  one  for  whom  elements  exist;  isolates  them  from  pur- 
poseful action,'  and  presents  them  to  beginners  as  the  "  simple  " 
things. 

But  it  is  time  for  a  positive  statement.  Aside  from  the  fact 
that  active  occupations  represent  things  to  do,  not  studies,  their 
educational  significance  consists  in  the  fact  that  they  may 
typify  social  situations.  Men's  fundamental  common  con- 
cerns center  about  food,  shelter,  clothing,  household  furnish- 
ings, and  the  appliances  connected  with  production,  exchange, 
and  consumption.  Representing  both  the  necessities  of  life 
and  the  adornments  with  which  the  necessities  have  been 
clothed,  they  tap  instincts  at  a  deep  level ;  they  are  saturated 
with  facts  and  principles  having  a  social  quality. 

To  charge  that  the  various  activities  of  gardening,  weaving, 
construction  in  wood,  manipulation  of  metals,  cooking,  etc., 
which  carry  over  these  fundamental  human  concerns  into 
school  resources,  have  a  merely  bread  and  butter  value  is  to 
miss  their  point.  If  the  mass  of  mankind  has  usually  found  in 
its  industrial  occupations  nothing  but  evils  which  had  to  be 
endured  for  the  sake  of  maintaining  existence,  the  fault  is  not 


Play  and  Work  in  the  Curriculum  235 

in.  the  occupations,  but  in  the  conditions  under  which  they  are 
carried  on.  The  continually  increasing  importance  of  eco- 
nomic factors  in  contemporary  Hfe  makes  it  the  more  needed 
that  education  should  reveal  their  scientific  content  and  their 
social  value.  For  in  schools,  occupations  are  not  carried  on 
for  pecuniary  gain  but  for  their  own  content.  Freed  from  ex- 
traneous associations  and  from  the  pressure  of  wage-earning, 
they  supply  modes  of  experience  which  are  intrinsically  valu- 
able ;  they  are  truly  Uberalizing  in  quality. 

Gardening,  for  example,  need  not  be  taught  either  for  the 
sake  of  preparing  future  gardeners,  or  as  an  agreeable  way 
of  passing  time.  It  affords  an  avenue  of  approach  to  knowl- 
edge of  the  place  farming  and  horticulture  have  had  in  the 
history  of  the  race  and  which  they  occupy  in  present  social 
organisation.  Carried  on  in  an  environment  educationally 
controlled,  they  are  means  for  making  a  study  of  the  facts  of 
growth,  the  chemistry  of  soil,  the  r61e  of  Hght,  air,  and  moisture, 
injurious  and  helpful  animal  Ufe,  etc.  There  is  nothing  in  the 
elementary  study  of  botany  which  cannot  be  introduced  in  a 
vital  way  in  coimection  with  caring  for  the  growth  of  seeds. 
Instead  of  the  subject  matter  belonging  to  a  peculiar  study 
called  botany,  it  will  then  belong  to  life,  and  will  find,  moreover, 
its  natural  correlations  with  the  facts  of  soil,  animal  Hfe,  and 
human  relations.  As  students  grow  mature,  they  will  per- 
ceive problems  of  interest  which  may  be  pursued  for  the 
sake  of  discovery,  independent  of  the  original  direct  inter- 
est in  gardening  —  problems  connected  with  the  germina- 
tion and  nutrition  of  plants,  the  reproduction  of  fruits, 
etc.,  thus  making  a  transition  to  deUberate  intellectual  inves- 
tigations. 

The  illustration  is  intended  to  apply,  of  course,  to  other  school 
occupations,  —  wood-working,  cooking,  and  on  through  the 
list.  It  is  pertinent  to  note  that  in  the  history  of  the  race  the 
sciences  grew  gradually  out  from  useful  social  occupations. 
Physics  developed  slowly  out  of  the  use  of  tools  and  machines ; 


236  Philosophy  of  Education 

the  important  branch  of  physics  known  as  mechanics  testifies 
in  its  name  to  its  original  associations.  The  lever,  wheel,  in- 
cUned  plane,  etc.,  were  among  the  first  great  intellectual  dis- 
coveries of  mankind,  and  they  are  none  the  less  intellectual  be- 
cause they  occurred  in  the  course  of  seeking  for  means  of 
accomplishing  practical  ends.  The  great  advance  of  electrical 
science  in  the  last  generation  was  closely  associated,  as  effect 
and  as  cause,  with  application  of  electric  agencies  to  means 
of  communication,  transportation,  Ughting  of  cities  and 
houses,  and  more  economical  production  of  goods.  These 
are  social  ends,  moreover,  and  if  they  are  too  closely  associated 
with  notions  of  private  profit,  it  is  not  because  of  anything  in 
them,  but  because  they  have  been  deflected  to  private  uses :  — 
a  fact  which  puts  upon  the  school  the  responsibility  of  restor- 
ing their  connection,  in  the  mind  of  the  coming  generation, 
with  public  scientific  and  social  interests.  In  like  ways, 
chemistry  grew  out  of  processes  of  dying,  bleaching,  metal 
working,  etc.,  and  in  recent  times  has  found  innumerable  new 
uses  in  industry. 

Mathematics  is  now  a  highly  abstract  science ;  geometry, 
however,  means  Uterally  earth-measuring:  the  practical  use 
of  number  in  counting  to  keep  track  of  things  and  in  meas- 
uring is  even  more  important  to-day  than  in  the  times  when  it 
was  invented  for  these  purposes.  Such  considerations  (which 
could  be  dupHcated  in  the  history  of  any  science)  are  not 
arguments  for  a  recapitulation  of  the  history  of  the  race  or  for 
dwelling  long  in  the  early  rule  of  thumb  stage.  But  they  in- 
dicate the  possibilities  —  greater  to-day  than  ever  before  —  of 
using  active  occupations  as  opportunities  for  scientific  study. 
The  opportunities  are  just  as  great  on  the  social  side,  whether 
we  look  at  the  Ufe  of  collective  humanity  in  its  past  or  in  its 
future.  The  most  direct  road  for  elementary  students  into 
civics  and  economics  is  found  in  consideration  of  the  place  and 
ofiice  of  industrial  occupations  in  social  life.  Even  for  older 
students,  the  social  sciences  would  be  less  abstract  and  formal 


Play  and  Work  in  the  Curriculmn  237 

if  they  were  dealt  with  less  as  sciences  (less  as  formulated 
bodies  of  knowledge)  and  more  in  their  direct  subject-matter 
as  that  is  found  in  the  daily  life  of  the  social  groups  in  which 
the  student  shares. 

Connection  of  occupations  with  the  method  of  science  is  at 
least  as  close  as  with  its  subject  matter.  The  ages  when 
scientific  progress  was  slow  were  the  ages  when  learned  men  had 
contempt  for  the  material  and  processes  of  everyday  hfe,  es- 
pecially for  those  concerned  with  manual  pursuits.  Conse- 
quently they  strove  to  develop  knowledge  out  of  general  prin- 
ciples —  almost  out  of  their  heads  —  by  logical  reasonings. 
It  seems  as  absurd  that  learning  should  come  from  action  on 
and  with  physical  things,  Hke  dropping  acid  on  a  stone  to  see 
what  would  happen,  as  that  it  should  come  from  sticking  an 
awl  with  waxed  thread  through  a  piece  of  leather.  But  the 
rise  of  experimental  methods  proved  that,  given  control  of 
conditions,  the  latter  operation  is  more  typical  of  the  right 
way  of  knowledge  than  isolated  logical  reasonings.  Experi- 
ment developed  in  the  seventeenth  and  succeeding  centuries 
and  became  the  authorized  way  of  knowing  when  men's  in- 
terests were  centered  in  the  question  of  control  of  nature  for 
human  uses.  The  active  occupations  in  which  appliances  are 
brought  to  bear  upon  physical  things  with  the  intention  of 
effecting  useful  changes  is  the  most  vital  introduction  to  the 
experimental  method. 

3.  Work  and  Play.  —  What  has  been  termed  active  occu- 
pation includes  both  play  and  work.  In  their  intrinsic  mean- 
ing, play  and  industry  are  by  no  means  so  antithetical  to  one 
another  as  is  often  assumed,  any  sharp  contrast  being  due  to 
undesirable  social  conditions.  Both  involve  ends  consciously 
entertained  and  the  selection  and  adaptations  of  materials 
and  processes  designed  to  effect  the  desired  ends.  The  dif- 
ference between  them  is  largely  one  of  time-span,  influencing 
the  directness  of  the  connection  of  means  and  ends.  In  play, 
the  interest  is  more  direct  —  a  fact  frequently  indicated  by 


238  Philosophy  of  Education 

saying  that  in  play  the  activity  is  its  own  end,  instead  of  its 
having  an  ulterior  result.  The  statement  is  correct,  but  it  is 
falsely  taken,  if  supposed  to  mean  that  play  activity  is  momen- 
tary, having  no  element  of  looking  ahead  and  none  of  pursuit. 
Hunting,  for  example,  is  one  of  the  commonest  forms  of  adult 
play,  but  the  existence  of  foresight  and  the  direction  of  present 
activity  by  what  one  is  watching  for  are  obvious.  When  an 
activity  is  its  own  end  in  the  sense  that  the  action  of  the  moment 
is  complete  in  itself,  it  is  purely  physical ;  it  has  no  meaning 
(See  p.  90).  The  person  is  either  going  through  motions 
quite  blindly,  perhaps  purely  imitatively,  or  else  is  in  a  state 
of  excitement  which  is  exhausting  to  mind  and  nerves.  Both 
results  may  be  seen  in  some  types  of  kindergarten  games 
where  the  idea  of  play  is  so  highly  sjrmbolic  that  only  the 
adult  is  conscious  of  it.  Unless  the  children  succeed  in  read- 
ing in  some  quite  different  idea  of  their  own,  they  move  about 
either  as  if  in  a  hypnotic  daze,  or  they  respond  to  a  direct 
excitation. 

The  point  of  these  remarks  is  that  play  has  an  end  in  the 
sense  of  a  directing  idea  which  gives  point  to  the  successive 
acts.  Persons  who  play  are  not  just  doing  something  (pure 
physical  movement) ;  they  are  trying  to  do  or  effect  some- 
thing, an  attitude  that  involves  anticipatory  forecasts  which 
stimulate  their  present  responses.  The  anticipated  result, 
however,  is  rather  a  subsequent  action  than  the  production  of  a 
specific  change  in  things.  Consequently  play  is  free,  plastic. 
Where  some  definite  external  outcome  is  wanted,  the  end 
has  to  be  held  to  with  some  persistence,  which  increases  as 
the  contemplated  result  is  complex  and  requires  a  fairly  long 
series  of  intermediate  adaptations.  When  the  intended  act  is 
another  activity,  it  is  not  necessary  to  look  far  ahead  and  it  is 
possible  to  alter  it  easily  and  frequently.  If  a  child  is  making 
a  toy  boat,  he  must  hold  on  to  a  single  end  and  direct  a  con- 
siderable number  of  acts  by  that  one  idea.  If  he  is  just "  play- 
ing boat "  he  may  change  the  material  that  serves  as  a  boat 


Flay  and  Work  in  the  Curriculum  239 

almost  at  will,  and  introduce  new  factors  as  fancy  suggests. 
The  imagination  makes  what  it  will  of  chairs,  blocks, 
leaves,  chips,  if  they  serve  the  purpose  of  carrying  activity 
forward. 

From  a  very  early  age,  however,  there  is  no  distinction  of  ex- 
clusive periods  of  play  activity  and  work  activity,  but  only 
one  of  emphasis.  There  are  definite  results  which  even  young 
children  desire,  and  try  to  bring  to  pass.  Their  eager  interest 
in  sharing  the  occupations  of  others,  if  nothing  else,  accom- 
pHshes  this.  Children  want  to  "  help" ;  they  are  anxious  to 
engage  in  the  pursuits  of  adults  which  effect  external  changes : 
setting  the  table,  washing  dishes,  helping  care  for  animals,  etc. 
In  their  plays,  they  like  to  construct  their  own  toys  and  ap- 
pUances.  With  increasing  maturity,  activity  which  does  not 
give  back  results  of  tangible  and  visible  achievement  loses  its 
interest.  Play  then  changes  to  fooHng  and  if  habituallv  in- 
dulged in  is  demoralizing.  Observable  results  are  necessary 
to  enable  persons  to  get  a  sense  and  a  measure  of  their 
own  powers.  When  make-believe  is  recognized  to  be  make- 
believe,  the  device  of  making  objects  in  fancy  alone  is  too 
easy  to  stimulate  intense  action.  One  has  only  to  observe 
the  countenance  of  children  really  playing  to  note  that 
their  attitude  is  one  of  serious  absorption ;  this  attitude  can- 
not be  maintained  when  things  cease  to  afford  adequate 
stimulation. 

When  fairly  remote  results  of  a  definite  character  are  fore- 
seen and  enlist  persistent  effort  for  their  accomplishment, 
play  passes  into  work.  Like  play,  it  signifies  purposeful 
activity  and  differs  not  in  that  activity  is  subordinated  to  an 
external  result,  but  in  the  fact  that  a  longer  course  of  activity 
is  occasioned  by  the  idea  of  a  result.  The  demand  for  contin- 
uous attention  is  greater,  and  more  intelligence  must  be  shown 
in  selecting  and  shaping  means.  To  extend  this  account  would 
be  to  repeat  what  has  been  said  under  the  caption  of  aim,  in- 
terest, and  thinking.     It  is  pertinent,  however,  to  inquire  why 


240  Philosophy  of  EducaHon 

the  idea  is  so  current  that  work  involves  subordination  of  an 
activity  to  an  ulterior  material  result. 

The  extreme  form  of  this  subordination,  namely  drudgery, 
offers  a  clew.  Activity  carried  on  under  conditions  of  external 
pressure  or  coercion  is  not  carried  on  for  any  significance  at- 
tached to  the  doing.  The  course  of  action  is  not  intrinsically 
satisfying;  it  is  a  mere  means  for  avoiding  some  penalty,  or 
for  gaining  some  reward  at  its  conclusion.  What  is  inherently 
repulsive  is  endured  for  the  sake  of  averting  something  still 
more  repulsive  or  of  securing  a  gain  hitched  on  by  others. 
Under  unfree  economic  conditions,  this  state  of  affairs  is  bound 
to  exist..  Work  or  industry  offers  little  to  engage  the  emotions 
and  the  imagination ;  it  is  a  more  or  less  mechanical  series  of 
strains.  Only  the  hold  which  the  completion  of  the  work 
has  upon  a  person  will  keep  him  going.  But  the  end  should 
be  intrinsic  to  the  action ;  it  should  be  its  end  —  a  part  of  its 
own  course.  Then  it  affords  a  stimulus  to  effort  very  different 
from  that  arising  from  the  thought  of  results  which  have  noth- 
ing to  do  with  the  intervening  action.  As  already  mentioned, 
the  absence  of  economic  pressure  in  schools  supplies  an  op- 
portunity for  reproducing  industrial  situations  of  mature  life 
under  conditions  where  the  occupation  can  be  carried  on  for 
its  own  sake.  If  in  some  cases,  pecuniary  recognition  is  also 
a  result  of  an  action,  though  not  the  chief  motive  for  it,  that 
fact  may  well  increase  the  significance  of  the  occupation. 

Where  something  approaching  drudgery  or  the  need  of  ful- 
filling externally  imposed  tasks  exists,  the  demand  for  play 
persists,  but  tends  to  be  perverted.  The  ordinary  course  of 
action  fails  to  give  adequate  stimulus  to  emotion  and  imagina- 
tion. So  in  leisure  time,  there  is  an  imperious  demand  for  their 
stimulation  by  any  kind  of  means ;  gambling,  drink,  etc.,  may 
be  resorted  to.  Or,  in  less  extreme  cases,  there  is  recourse  to 
idle  amusement ;  to  anything  which  passes  time  with  immedi- 
ate agreeableness.  Recreation,  as  the  word  indicates,  is  re- 
cuperation of  energy.    No  demand  of  human  nature  is  more 


Play  and  Work  in  the  Currictdum  241 

argent  or  less  to  be  escaped.  The  idea  that  the  need  can  be 
suppressed  is  absolutely  fallacious,  and  the  Puritanic  tradition 
which  disallows  the  need  has  entailed  an  enormous  crop  of 
evils.  If  education  does  not  afford  opportunity  for  wholesome 
recreation  and  train  capacity  for  seeking  and  finding  it,  the 
suppressed  instincts  find  all  sorts  of  illicit  outlets,  sometimes 
overt,  sometimes  confined  to  indulgence  of  the  imagination. 
Education  has  no  more  serious  responsibility  than  making 
adequate  provision  for  enjoyment  of  recreative  leisure;  not 
only  for  the  sake  of  immediate  health,  but  still  more  if  pos- 
sible for  the  sake  of  its  lasting  effect  upon  habits  of  mind. 
Art  is  again  the  answer  to  this  demand. 

Summary.  —  In  the  previous  chapter  we  found  that  the 
primary  subject  matter  of  knowing  is  that  contained  in  learn- 
ing how  to  do  tilings  of  a  fairly  direct  sort.  The  educational 
equivalent  of  this  principle  is  the  consistent  use  of  simple 
occupations  which  appeal  to  the  powers  of  youth  and  which 
typify  general  modes  of  social  activity.  Skill  and  information 
about  materials,  tools,  and  laws  of  energy  are  acquired  while 
activities  are  carried  on  for  their  own  sake.  The  fact  that 
they  are  socially  representative  gives  a  quality  to  the  skill  and 
knowledge  gained  which  makes  them  transferable  to  out-of- 
school  situations. 

It  is  important  not  to  confuse  the  psychological  distinction 
between  play  and  work  with  the  economic  distinction.  Psy- 
chologically, the  defining  characteristic  of  play  is  not  amuse- 
ment nor  aimlessness.  It  is  the  fact  that  the  aim  is  thought  of 
as  more  activity  in  the  same  Kne,  without  defining  continuity 
of  action  in  reference  to  results  produced.  Activities  as  they 
grow  more  complicated  gain  added  meaning  by  greater  atten- 
tion to  specific  results  achieved.  Thus  they  pass  gradually 
into  work.  Both  are  equally  free  and  intrinsically  motivated, 
apart  from  false  economic  conditions  which  tend  to  make  play 
into  idle  «xdtement  for  the  well  to  do,  and  work  into  uncon- 
genial labor  for  the  poor.    Work  is  psychologically  simply 


242  Philosophy  of  Education 

an  activity  which  consciously  includes  regard  for  consequences 
as  a  part  of  itself ;  it  becomes  constrained  labor  when  the  con- 
sequences are  outside  of  the  activity  as  an  end  to  which 
activity  is  merely  a  means.  Work  which  remains  permeated 
with  the  play  attitude  is  art  —  in  quality  if  not  in  conven- 
tional designation. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE   SIGNIFICANCE   OF   GEOGRAPHY  AND  HISTORY 

1.  Extension  of  Meaning  of  Primary  Activities.  —  Nothing 
Is  more  striking  than  the  difference  between  an  activity  as 
merely  physical  and  the  wealth  of  meanings  which  the  same 
activity  may  assume.  From  the  outside,  an  astronomer 
gazing  through  a  telescope  is  like  a  small  boy  looking  through 
the  same  tube.  In  each  case,  there  is  an  arrangement  of  glass 
and  metal,  an  eye,  and  a  little  speck  of  light  in  the  distance. 
Yet  at  a  critical  moment,  the  activity  of  an  astronomer  might 
be  concerned  with  the  birth  of  a  world,  and  have  whatever  is 
known  about  the  starry  heavens  as  its  significant  content. 
Physically  speaking,  what  man  has  effected  on  this  globe  in  his 
progress  from  savagery  is  a  mere  scratch  on  its  surface,  not 
perceptible  at  a  distance  which  is  slight  in  comparison  with  the 
reaches  even  of  the  solar  system.  Yet  in  meaning  what  has 
been  accomplished  measures  just  the  difference  of  civilization 
from  savagery.  Although  the  activities,  physically  viewed, 
have  changed  somewhat,  this  change  is  slight  in  comparison 
with  the  development  of  the  meanings  attaching  to  the  activi- 
ties. There  is  no  Umit  to  the  meaning  which  an  action  may 
come  to  possess.  It  all  depends  upon  the  context  of  perceived 
connections  in  which  it  is  placed ;  the  reach  of  imagination  in 
realizing  connections  is  inexhaustible. 

The  advantage  which  the  activity  of  man  has  in  appro- 
priating and  finding  meanings  makes  his  education  something 
else  than  the  manufacture  of  a  tool  or  the  training  of  an  animal. 
The  latter  increase  efficiency ;  they  do  not  develop  significance. 
The  final  educational  importance  of  such  occupations  in  play 

24^ 


244  Philosophy  of  Education 

and  work  as  were  considered  in  the  last  chapter  is  that  they 
afford  the  most  direct  instrumentalities  for  such  extension  of 
meaning.  Set  going  under  adequate  conditions  they  are  mag- 
nets for  gathering  and  retaining  an  indefinitely  wide  scope  of 
intellectual  considerations.  They  provide  vital  centers  for  the 
reception  and  assimilation  of  information.  When  information 
is  purveyed  in  chunks  simply  as  information  to  be  retained 
for  its  own  sake,  it  tends  to  stratify  over  vital  experience. 
Entering  as  a  factor  into  an  activity  pursued  for  its  own 
sake  —  whether  as  a  means  or  as  a  widening  of  the  content 
of  the  aim  —  it  is  informing.  The  insight  directly  gained 
fuses  with  what  is  told.  Individual  experience  is  then  capable 
of  taking  up  and  holding  in  solution  the  net  results  of  the  ex- 
perience of  the  group  to  which  he  belongs  —  including  the 
results  of  sufferings  and  trials  over  long  stretches  of  time.  And 
such  media  have  no  fixed  saturation  point  where  further  ab- 
sorption is  impossible.  The  more  that  is  taken  in,  the  greater 
capacity  there  is  for  further  assimilation.  New  receptiveness 
follows  upon  new  curiosity,  and  new  curiosity  upon  information 
gained. 

The  meanings  with  which  activities  become  charged, 
concern  nature  and  man.  This  is  an  obvious  truism,  which 
however  gains  meaning  when  translated  into  educational 
equivalents.  So  translated,  it  signifies  that  geography  and 
history  supply  subject  matter  which  gives  background  and 
outlook,  intellectual  perspective,  to  what  might  otherwise  be 
narrow  personal  actions  or  mere  forms  of  technical  skill. 
With  every  increase  of  abiUty  to  place  our  own  doings  in 
their  time  and  space  connections,  our  doings  gain  in  signifi- 
cant content.  We  realize  that  we  are  citizens  of  no  mean 
city  in  discovering  the  scene  in  space  or  which  we  are 
denizens,  and  the  continuous  manifestation  of  endeavor  in 
time  of  which  we  are  heirs  and  continuers.  Thus  our  ordinary 
daily  experiences  cease  to  be  things  of  the  moment  and  gain 
enduring  substance. 


The  Significance  of  Geography  and  History       245 

Of  course  if  geography  and  history  are  taught  as  ready- 
made  studies  which  a  person  studies  simply  because  he  is  sent 
to  school,  it  easily  happens  that  a  large  number  of  statements 
about  things  remote  and  aUen  to  everyday  experience  are 
learned.  Activity  is  divided,  and  two  separate  worlds  are 
built  up,  occupying  activity  at  divided  periods.  No  transmu- 
tation takes  place;  ordinary  experience  is  not  enlarged  in 
meaning  by  getting  its  connections;  what  is  studied  is  not 
animated  and  made  real  by  entering  into  immediate  activity. 
Ordinary  experience  is  not  even  left  as  it  was,  narrow  but  vital. 
Rather,  it  loses  something  of  its  mobility  and  sensitiveness  to 
suggestions.  It  is  weighed  down  and  pushed  into  a  comer  by 
a  load  of  unassimilated  information.  It  parts  with  its  flexible 
responsiveness  and  alert  eagerness  for  additional  meaning. 
Mere  amassing  of  information  apart  from  the  direct  interests 
of  Hf e  makes  mind  wooden ;  elasticity  disappears. 

Normally  every  activity  engaged  in  for  its  own  sake  reaches 
out  beyond  its  immediate  self.  It  does  not  passively  wait  for 
information  to  be  bestowed  which  will  increase  its  meaning; 
it  seeks  it  out.  Curiosity  is  not  an  accidental  isolated  posses- 
sion ;  it  is  a  necessary  consequence  of  the  fact  that  an  experi- 
ence is  a  moving,  changing  thing,  involving  all  kinds  of  con- 
nections with  other  things.  Curiosity  is  but  the  tendency  to 
make  these  connections  perceptible.  It  is  the  business  of 
educators  to  supply  an  environment  so  that  this  reaching  out 
of  an  experience  may  be  fruitfully  rewarded  and  kept  continu- 
ously active.  Within  a  certain  kind  of  environment,  an 
activity  may  be  checked  so  that  the  only  meaning  which 
accrues  is  of  its  direct  and  tangible  isolated  outcome.  One 
may  cook,  or  hammer,  or  walk,  and  the  resulting  consequences 
may  not  take  the  mind  any  farther  than  the  consequences  of 
cooking,  hammering,  and  walking  in  the  literal — or  physical  — 
sense.  But  nevertheless  the  consequences  of  the  act  remain 
far-reaching.  To  walk  involves  a  displacement  and  reaction  of 
the  lesistLog  earth,  whose  thrill  is  felt  wherever  there  is  matter. 


246  Philosophy  of  Education 

It  involves  the  structure  of  the  limbs  and  the  nervous  system ; 
the  principles  of  mechanics.  To  cook  is  to  utilize  heat  and 
moisture  to  change  the  chemical  relations  of  food  materials; 
it  has  a  bearing  upon  the  assimilation  of  food  and  the  growth 
of  the  body.  The  utmost  that  the  most  learned  men  of  science 
know  in  physics,  chemistry,  physiology  is  not  enough  to  make 
all  these  consequences  and  connections  perceptible.  The  task 
of  education,  once  more,  is  to  see  to  it  that  such  activities  are 
performed  in  such  ways  and  under  such  conditions  as  render 
these  connections  as  perceptible  as  possible.  To  *  learn  geog- 
raphy '  is  to  gain  in  power  to  perceive  the  spatial,  the 
natural,  connections  of  an  ordinary  act;  to  'learn  history'  is 
essentially  to  gain  in  power  to  recognize  its  human  connections. 
For  what  is  called  geography  as  a  formulated  study  is  simply 
the  body  of  facts  and  principles  which  have  been  discovered 
in  other  men's  experience  about  the  natural  medium  in  which 
we  live,  and  in  connection  with  which  the  particular  acts  of 
our  hfe  have  an  explanation.  So  history  as  a  formulated  study 
is  but  the  body  of  known  facts  about  the  activities  and  suffer- 
ings of  the  social  groups  with  which  our  own  lives  are  con- 
tinuous, and  through  reference  to  which  our  own  customs  and 
institutions  are  illuminated. 

2.  The  Complementary  Nature  of  History  and  Geography. 
—  History  and  geography  —  including  in  the  latter,  for  reasons 
about  to  be  mentioned,  nature  study  —  are  the  information 
studies  par  excellence  of  the  schools.  Examination  of  the 
materials  and  the  method  of  their  use  will  make  clear  that  the 
difference  between  penetration  of  this  information  into  living 
experience  and  its  mere  piling  up  in  isolated  heaps  depends 
upon  whether  these  studies  are  faithful  to  the  interdependence 
of  man  and  nature  wmcn  affords  these  studies  their  justifica- 
tion. Nowhere,  however,  is  there  greater  danger  that  subject 
matter  will  be  accepted  as  appropriate  educational  material 
simply  because  it  has  become  customary  to  teach  and 
learn  it.     The  idea  of  a  philosophic  reason  for  it,  because 


The  Significance  of  Geography  and  History       247 

of  the  function  of  the  material  in  a  worthy  transformation  of 
experience,  is  looked  upon  as  a  vain  fancy,  or  as  supplying  a 
high-sounding  phraseology  in  support  of  what  is  already  done. 
The  words  "  history  "  and  "  geography  "  suggest  simply  the 
matter  which  has  been  traditionally  sanctioned  in  the  schools. 
The  mass  and  variety  of  this  matter  discourage  an  attempt  to 
see  what  it  really  stands  for,  and  how  it  can  be  so  taught  as  to 
fulfill  its  mission  in  the  experience  of  pupils.  But  unless  the 
idea  that  there  is  a  unifying  and  social  direction  in  education 
is  a  farcical  pretense,  subjects  that  bulk  as  large  in  the  cur- 
riculum as  history  and  geography,  must  represent  a  general 
function  in  the  development  of  a  truly  socialized  and  intel- 
lectualized  experience.  The  discovery  of  this  function  must 
be  employed  as  a  criterion  for  trying  and  sifting  the  facts 
taught  and  the  methods  used. 

The  function  of  historical  and  geographical  subject  matter 
has  been  stated ;  it  is  to  enrich  and  Hberate  the  more  direct  and 
personal  contacts  of  Ufe  by  furnishing  their  context,  their  back- 
ground and  outlook.  While  geography  emphasizes  the  physi- 
cal side  and  history  the  social,  these  are  only  emphases  in  a 
common  topic,  namely,  the  associated  life  of  men.  For  this 
associated  life,  with  its  experiments,  its  ways  and  means,  its 
achievements  and  failures,  does  not  go  on  in  the  sky  nor  yet  in 
a  vacuum.  It  takes  place  on  the  earth.  This  setting  of  nature 
does  not  bear  to  social  activities  the  relation  that  the  scenery  of 
a  theatrical  performance  bears  to  a  dramatic  representation ; 
it  enters  into  the  very  make-up  of  the  social  happenings  that 
form  history.  Nature  is  the  medium  of  social  occurrences. 
It  furnishes  original  stimuli;  it  supplies  obstacles  and  re- 
sources. Civilization  is  the  progressive  mastery  of  its  varied 
energies.  When  this  interdependence  of  the  study  of  history, 
representing  the  human  emphasis,  with  the  study  of  geography, 
representing  the  natural,  is  ignored,  history  sinks  to  a  listing 
of  dates  with  an  appended  inventory  of  events,  labeled  "  im- 
portant " ;  or  else  it  becomes  a  literary  phantasy  —  for  in 


248  Philosophy  of  Education 

purely  literary  history  the  natural  environment  is  but  stage 
scenery. 

Geography,  of  course,  has  its  educative  influence  in  a  coun- 
terpart connection  of  natural  facts  with  social  events  and  their 
consequences.  The  classic  definition  of  geography  as  an  ac^ 
count  of  the  earth  as  the  home  of  man  expresses  the  educa- 
tional reality.  But  it  is  easier  to  give  this  definition  than  it 
is  to  present  specific  geographical  subject  matter  in  its  vital 
human  bearings.  The  residence,  pursuits,  successes,  and  fail- 
ures of  men  are  the  things  that  give  the  geographic  data  their 
reason  for  inclusion  in  the  material  of  instruction.  But  to 
hold  the  two  together  requires  an  informed  and  cultivated  im- 
agination. When  the  ties  are  broken,  geography  presents  itself 
as  that  hodge-podge  of  unrelated  fragments  too  often  found. 
It  appears  as  a  veritable  rag-bag  of  intellectual  odds  and  ends : 
the  height  of  a  mountain  here,  the  course  of  a  river  there,  the 
quantity  of  shingles  produced  in  this  town,  the  tonnage  of  the 
shipping  in  that,  the  boundary  of  a  county,  the  capital  of  a  state. 

The  earth  as  the  home  of  man  is  humanizing  and  unified ; 
the  earth  viewed  as  a  miscellany  of  facts  is  scattering  and 
imaginatively  inert.  Geography  is  a  topic  that  originally 
appeals  to  imagination  —  even  to  the  romantic  imagination. 
It  shares  in  the  wonder  and  glory  that  attach  to  adventure, 
travel,  and  exploration.  The  variety  of  peoples  and  environ- 
ments, their  contrast  with  familiar  scenes,  furnishes  infinite 
stimulation.  The  mind  is  moved  from  the  monotony  of  the 
customary.  And  while  local  or  home  geography  is  the  natural 
starting  point  in  the  reconstructive  development  of  the  natural 
environment,  it  is  an  intellectual  starting-point  for  moving 
out  into  the  unknown,  not  an  end  in  itself.  When  not 
treated  as  a  basis  for  getting  at  the  large  world  beyond,  the 
study  of  the  home  geography  becomes  as  deadly  as  do  object 
lessons  which  simply  summarize  the  properties  of  familiar 
objects.  The  reason  is  the  same.  The  imagination  is  not  fed, 
but  is  held  down  to  recapitulating,  cataloguing,  and  refining 


The  Significance  of  Geography  and  History       249 

what  is  already  known.  But  when  the  familiar  fences  that 
mark  the  limits  of  the  village  proprietors  are  signs  that  intro- 
duce an  understanding  cf  the  boundaries  of  great  nations, 
even  fences  are  lighted  with  meaning.  Sunhght,  air,  running 
water,  inequahty  of  earth's  surface,  varied  industries,  civil 
officers  and  their  duties  —  all  these  things  are  found  in  the 
local  environment.  Treated  as  if  their  meaning  began  and 
ended  in  those  confines,  they  are  curious  facts  to  be  labori- 
ously learned.  As  instruments  for  extending  the  limits  of 
experience,  bringing  within  its  scope  peoples  and  things  other- 
wise strange  and  unknown,  they  are  transfigured  by  the  use 
to  which  they  are  put.  Sunlight,  wind,  stream,  commerce, 
political  relations  come  from  afar  and  lead  the  thoughts  afar. 
To  follow  their  course  is  to  enlarge  the  mind  not  by  stuffing  it 
with  additional  information,  but  by  remaking  the  meaning  of 
what  was  previously  a  matter  of  course. 

The  same  principle  coordinates  branches,  or  phases,  of  geo- 
graphical study  which  tend  to  become  specialized  and  separate. 
Mathematical  or  astronomical,  physiographic,  topographic, 
pohtical,  commercial,  geography,  all  make  their  claims.  How 
are  they  to  be  adjusted?  By  an  external  compromise  that 
crowds  in  so  much  of  each  ?  No  other  method  is  to  be  found 
unless  it  be  constantly  borne  in  mind  that  the  educational 
center  of  gravity  is  in  the  cultural  or  humane  aspects  of  the 
subject.  From  this  center,  any  material  becomes  relevant  in 
so  far  as  it  is  needed  to  help  appreciate  the  significance  of 
human  activities  and  relations.  The  differences  of  civiliza- 
tion in  cold  and  tropical  regions,  the  special  inventions,  in- 
dustrial and  political,  of  peoples  in  the  temperate  regions,  can- 
not be  understood  without  appeal  to  the  earth  as  a  member  of 
the  solar  system.  Economic  activities  deeply  influence  social 
intercourse  and  pohtical  organization  on  one  side,  and  reflect 
physical  conditions  on  the  other.  The  specializations  of  these 
topics  are  for  the  specialists;  their  interaction  concerns  maa 
as  a  being  whose  experience  is  social. 


250  Philosophy  of  Education 

To  include  nature  study  within  geography  doubtless  seems 
forced ;  verbally,  it  is.  But  in  educational  idea  there  is  but 
one  reality,  and  it  is  pity  that  in  practice  we  have  two  names : 
for  the  diversity  of  names  tends  to  conceal  the  identity  of 
meaning.  Nature  and  the  earth  should  be  equivalent  terms, 
and  so  should  earth  study  and  nature  study.  Everybody 
knows  that  nature  study  has  suflered  in  schools  from  scrappi- 
ness  of  subject  matter,  due  to  dealing  with  a  large  number  of 
isolated  points.  The  parts  of  a  flower  have  been  studied,  for 
example,  apart  from  the  flower  as  an  organ ;  the  flower  apart 
from  the  plant ;  the  plant  apart  from  the  soil,  air,  and  light  in 
which  and  through  which  it  hves.  The  result  is  an  inevitable 
deadness  of  topics  to  which  attention  is  invited,  but  which 
are  so  isolated  that  they  do  not  feed  imagination.  The  lack 
of  interest  is  so  great  that  it  was  seriously  proposed  to  revive 
animism,  to  clothe  natural  facts  and  events  with  myths  in 
order  that  they  might  attract  and  hold  the  mind.  In  num- 
berless cases,  more  or  less  silly  personifications  were  resorted 
to.  The  method  was  silly,  but  it  expressed  a  real  need  for  a 
human  atmosphere.  The  facts  had  been  torn  to  pieces  by 
being  taken  out  of  their  context.  They  no  longer  belonged  to 
the  earth ;  they  had  no  abiding  place  anywhere.  To  com- 
pensate, recourse  was  had  to  artificial  and  sentimental  associa- 
tions. The  real  remedy  is  to  make  nature  study  a  study  of 
nature,  not  of  fragments  made  meaningless  through  complete, 
removal  from  the  situations  in  which  they  are  produced  and  in 
which  they  operate.  When  nature  is  treated  as  a  whole,  like 
the  earth  in  its  relations,  its  phenomena  fall  into  their  natural 
relations  of  sympathy  and  association  with  human  life,  and 
artificial  substitutes  are  not  needed. 

3.  History  and  Present  Social  Life. — The  segregation  which 
kills  the  vitality  of  history  is  divorce  from  present  modes  and 
concerns  of  social  life.  The  past  just  as  past  is  no  longer  our 
affair.  If  it  were  wholly  gone  and  done  with,  there  would  be 
only  one  reasonable  attitude  toward  it.    Let  the  dead  bury 


The  Significance  of  Geograpny  and  History      251 

their  dead.  But  knowledge  of  the  past  is  the  key  to  under- 
standing  the  present.  History  deals  with  the  past,  but  this  past 
is  the  history  of  the  present.  An  intelligent  study  of  the  dis- 
covery, explorations,  colonization  of  America,  of  the  pioneer 
movement  westward,  of  immigration,  etc.,  should  be  a  study  of 
the  United  States  as  it  is  to-day :  of  the  country  we  now  live 
in.  Studying  it  in  process  of  formation  makes  much  that  is 
too  complex  to  be  directly  grasped  open  to  comprehension. 
Genetic  method  was  perhaps  the  chief  scientific  achievement 
of  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Its  principle  is 
that  the  way  to  get  insight  into  any  complex  product  is  to 
trace  the  process  of  its  making,  —  to  follow  it  through  the 
successive  stages  of  its  growth.  To  apply  this  method  to  his- 
tory as  if  it  meant  only  the  truism  that  the  present  social  state 
cannot  be  separated  from  its  past,  is  one-sided.  It  means 
equally  that  past  events  cannot  be  separated  from  the  living 
present  and  retain  meaning.  The  true  starting  point  of  history 
is  always  some  present  situation  with  its  problems. 

This  general  principle  may  be  briefly  applied  to  a  considera- 
tion of  its  bearing  upon  a  number  of  points.  The  biographical 
method  is  generally  recommended  as  the  natural  mode  of  ap- 
proach to  historical  study.  The  lives  of  great  men,  of  heroes 
and  leaders,  make  concrete  and  vital  historic  episodes  other- 
wise abstract  and  incomprehensible.  They  condense  into 
vivid  pictures  complicated  and  tangled  series  of  events  spread 
over  so  much  space  and  time  that  only  a  highly  trained  mind 
can  follow  and  unravel  them.  There  can  be  no  doubt  of  the 
psychological  soundness  of  this  principle.  But  it  is  misused 
when  employed  to  throw  into  exaggerated  relief  the  doings  of 
a  few  individuals  without  reference  to  the  social  situations 
which  they  represent.  When  a  biography  is  related  just  as 
an  account  of  the  doings  of  a  man  isolated  from  the  conditions 
that  aroused  him  and  to  which  his  activities  were  a  response, 
we  do  not  have  a  study  of  history,  for  we  have  no  study  of 
social  life,  which  is  an  aiffair  of  individuals  in  association.     Wc 


252  Philosophy  of  Edttcation 

get  only  a  sugar  coating  which  makes  it  easier  to  swallow 
certain  fragments  of  information. 

Much  attention  has  been  given  of  late  to  primitive  life  as  an 
introduction  to  learning  history.  Here  also  there  is  a  right 
and  a  wrong  way  of  conceiving  its  value.  The  seemingly 
ready-made  character  and  the  complexity  of  present  condi- 
tions, their  apparently  hard  and  fast  character,  is  an  almost 
insuperable  obstacle  to  gaining  insight  into  their  nature.  Re- 
course to  the  primitive  may  furnish  the  fundamental  elements 
of  the  present  situation  in  immensely  simplified  form.  It  is 
like  unraveHng  a  cloth  so  complex  and  so  close  to  the  eyes 
that  its  scheme  cannot  be  seen,  until  the  larger  coarser  features 
of  the  pattern  appear.  We  cannot  simplify  the  present  situa- 
tions by  deHberate  experiment,  but  resort  to  primitive  life 
presents  us  with  the  sort  of  results  we  should  desire  from  an 
experiment.  Social  relationships  and  modes  of  organized  action 
are  reduced  to  their  lowest  terms.  When  this  social  aim  is  over- 
looked, however,  the  study  of  primitive  life  becomes  simply  a 
rehearsing  of  sensational  and  exciting  features  of  savagery. 

Primitive  history  suggests  industrial  history.  For  one  of 
ihe  chief  reasons  for  going  to  more  primitive  conditions  to 
resolve  the  present  into  more  easily  perceived  factors  is  that 
we  may  realize  how  the  fundamental  problems  of  procuring 
subsistence,  shelter,  and  protection  have  been  met;  and  by 
seeing  how  these  were  solved  in  the  earlier  days  of  the  human 
race,  form  some  conception  of  the  long  road  which  has  had  to  be 
traveled,  and  of  the  successive  inventions  by  which  the  race 
has  been  brought  forward  in  culture.  We  do  not  need  to  go 
into  disputes  regarding  the  economic  interpretation  of  history 
to  realize  that  the  industrial  history  of  mankind  gives  insight 
into  two  important  phases  of  social  life  in  away  which  no  other 
phase  of  history  can  possibly  do.  It  presents  us  with  knowl- 
edge of  the  successive  inventions  by  which  theoretical  science 
has  been  applied  to  the  control  of  nature  in  the  interests  of 
security  and  prosperity  of  social  life.     It  thus  reveals  the  sue- 


The  Significance  of  Geography  and  History       253 

cessive  causes  of  social  progress.  Its  other  service  is  to  put 
before  us  the  things  that  fundamentally  concern  all  men  in 
common  —  the  occupations  and  values  connected  with  getting 
a  living.  Economic  history  deals  with  the  activities,  the  career, 
and  fortunes  of  the  common  man  as  does  no  other  branch  of 
history.  The  one  thing  every  individual  must  do  is  to  live; 
the  one  thing  that  society  must  do  is  to  secure  from  each  indi- 
vidual rjs  fair  contribution  to  the  general  well  being  and  see 
to  it  that  a  just  return  is  made  to  him. 

Economic  history  is  more  human,  more  democratic,  and 
hence  more  HberaHzing  than  poHtical  history.  It  deals  not 
with  the  rise  and  fall  of  principalities  and  powers,  but  with  the 
growth  of  the  effective  liberties,  through  command  of  nature, 
of  the  common  man  for  whom  powers  and  principalities  exist. 

Industrial  history  also  offers  a  more  direct  avenue  of  ap- 
proach to  the  realization  of  the  intimate  connection  of  man's 
struggles,  successes,  and  failures  with  nature  than  does  political 
history  —  to  say  nothing  of  the  military  history  into  which 
political  history  so  easily  runs  when  reduced  to  the  levd  of 
youthful  comprehension.  For  industrial  history  is  essentially 
an  account  of  the  way  in  which  man  has  learned  to  utilize 
natural  energy  from  the  time  when  men  mostly  exploited  the 
muscular  energies  of  other  men  to  the  time  when,  in  promise 
if  not  in  actuahty,  the  resources  of  nature  are  so  under  com- 
mand as  to  enable  men  to  extend  a  conmion  dominion  over 
her.  When  the  history  of  work,  when  the  conditions  of  using 
the  soil,  forest,  mine,  of  domesticating  and  cultivating  grains 
and  animals,  of  manufacture  and  distribution,  are  left  out  of 
account,  history  tends  to  become  merely  literary  —  a  sys- 
tematized romance  of  a  mythical  humanity  living  upon  itself 
instead  of  upon  the  earth. 

Perhaps  the  most  neglected  branch  of  history  in  general 
education  is  intellectual  history.  We  are  only  just  beginning 
to  realize  that  the  great  heroes  who  have  advanced  human 
destiny  are  not  its  politicians^  generals,  and  diplomatists,  but 


254  Philosophy  of  Education 

the  scientific  discoverers  and  inventors  who  have  put  into  man's 
hands  the  instrumentalities  of  an  expanding  and  controlled 
experience,  and  the  artists  and  poets  who  have  celebrated  his 
struggles,  triumphs,  and  defeats  in  such  language,  pictorial, 
plastic,  or  written,  that  their  meaning  is  rendered  univer- 
sally accessible  to  others.  One  of  the  advantages  of  industrial 
history  as  a  history  of  man's  progressive  adaptation  of  natural 
forces  to  social  uses  is  the  opportunity  which  it  affords  for 
consideration  of  advance  in  the  methods  and  results  of  knowl- 
edge. At  present  men  are  accustomed  to  eulogize  intelligence 
and  reason  in  general  terms;  their  fundamental  importance 
is  urged.  But  pupils  often  come  away  from  the  conventional 
study  of  history,  and  think  either  that  the  human  intellect  i» 
a  static  quantity  which  has  not  progressed  by  the  invention  of 
better  methods,  or  else  that  intelligence,  save  as  a  display  of 
personal  shrewdness,  is  a  negligible  historic  factor.  Surfly  no 
better  way  could  be  devised  of  instilling  a  genuine  sense  Ol  the 
part  which  mind  has  to  play  in  Hfe  than  a  study  of  history  which 
makes  plain  how  the  entire  advance  of  humanity  from  savagery 
to  civilization  has  been  dependent  upon  intellectual  discov- 
eries and  inventions,  and  the  extent  to  which  the  things  which 
ordinarily  figure  most  largely  in  historical  writings  have  been 
side  issues,  or  even  obstructions  for  intelligence  to  overcome. 

Pursued  in  this  fashion,  liistory  would  most  naturally  be- 
come of  ethical  value  in  teaching.  Intelligent  insight  into 
present  forms  of  associated  life  is  necessary  for  a  character 
whose  moraHty  is  more  than  colorless  innocence.  Historical 
knowledge  helps  provide  such  insight.  It  is  an  organ  for  analy- 
sis of  the  warp  and  woof  of  the  present  social  fabric,  of  making 
known  the  forces  which  have  woven  the  pattern.  The  use  of 
history  for  cultivating  a  socialized  intelligence  constitutes  its 
moral  significance.  It  is  possible  to  employ  it  as  a  kind  of 
reservoir  of  anecdotes  to  be  drawn  on  to  inculcate  special  moral 
lessons  on  this  virtue  or  that  vice.  But  such  teaching  is  not 
so  much  an  ethical  use  of  history  as  it  is  an  effort  to  create 


The  Significance  of  Geography  and  History       255 

moral  impressions  by  means  of  more  or  less  authentic  material. 
At  best,  it  produces  a  temporary  emotional  glow ;  at  worst, 
callous  indifference  to  moralizing.  The  assistance  which  may 
be  given  by  history  to  a  more  intelUgent  sympathetic  under- 
standing of  the  social  situations  of  the  present  in  which  indi- 
viduals share  is  a  permanent  and  constructive  moral  asset. 

Summary.  —  It  is  the  nature  of  an  experience  to  have  im- 
plications which  go  far  beyond  what  is  at  first  consciously 
noted  in  it.  Bringing  these  connections  or  implications  to 
consciousness  enhances  the  meaning  of  the  experience.  Any 
experience,  however  trivial  in  its  first  appearance,  is  capable  of 
assuming  an  indefinite  richness  of  significance  by  extending 
its  range  of  perceived  connections.  Normal  communication 
with  others  is  the  readiest  way  of  effecting  this  development, 
for  it  links  up  the  net  results  of  the  experience  of  the  group  and 
even  the  race  with  the  immediate  experience  of  an  individual. 
By  normal  communication  is  meant  that  in  which  there  is  a 
joint  interest,  a  conunon  interest,  so  that  one  is  eager  to  give 
and  the  other  to  take.  It  contrasts  with  telling  or  stating 
things  simply  for  the  sake  of  impressing  them  upon  another, 
merely  in  order  to  test  him  to  see  how  much  he  has  retained 
and  can  Uterally  reproduce. 

Geography  and  history  are  the  two  great  school  resources 
for  bringing  about  the  enlargement  of  the  significance  of  a 
direct  personal  experience.  The  active  occupations  described 
in  the  previous  chapter  reach  out  in  space  and  time  with  re- 
spect to  both  nature  and  man.  Unless  they  are  taught  for 
external  reasons  or  as  mere  modes  of  skill  their  chief  educa- 
tional value  is  that  they  provide  the  most  direct  and  interest- 
ing roads  out  into  the  larger  world  of  meanings  stated  in  his- 
tory and  geography.  While  history  makes  human  implica- 
tions explicit  and  geography  natural  connections,  these  sub- 
jects are  two  phases  of  the  same  living  whole,  since  the  life 
of  men  in  association  goes  on  in  nature,  not  as  an  accidental 
setting,  but  as  the  material  and  medium  of  development. 


CHAPTER   XVII 

SCIENCE   IN   THE   COURSE   OF   STUDY 

1.   The  Logical  and  the   Psychological.  —  By  science  is 

meant,  as  already  stated,  that  knowledge  which  is  the  out- 
come of  methods  of  observation,  reflection,  and  testing  which 
are  deliberately  adopted  to  secure  a  settled,  assured  subject 
matter.  It  involves  an  intelligent  and  persistent  endeavor 
to  revise  current  beUefs  so  as  to  weed  out  what  is  erroneous, 
to  add  to  their  accuracy,  and,  above  all,  to  give  them  such  shape 
that  the  dependencies  of  the  various  facts  upon  one  another 
may  be  as  obvious  as  possible.  It  is,  like  all  knowledge,  an 
outcome  of  activity  bringing  about  certain  changes  in  the 
environment.  But  in  its  case,  the  quality  of  the  resulting 
knowledge  is  the  controlling  factor  and  not  an  incident  of 
the  activity.  Both  logically  and  educationally,  science  is  the 
perfecting  of  knowing,  its  last  stage. 

Science,  in  short,  signifies  a  realization  of  the  logical  im- 
plications of  any  knowledge.  Logical  order  is  not  a  form 
imposed  upon  what  is  known ;  it  is  the  proper  form  of  knowl- 
edge as  perfected.  For  it  means  that  the  statement  of  subject 
matter  is  of  a  nature  to  exhibit  to  one  who  understands  it 
the  premises  from  which  it  follows  and  the  conclusions 
to  which  it  points  (See  ante,  p.  224).  As  from  a  few  bones 
the  competent  zoologist  reconstructs  an  animal ;  so  from  the 
form  of  a  statement  in  mathematics  or  physics  the  specialist 
in  the  subject  can  form  an  idea  of  the  system  of  truths  in 
which  it  has  its  place. 

To  the  non-expert,  however,  this  perfected  form  is  a  stum- 
bling block.    Just  because  the  material  is  stated  with  refer- 

256 


Science  in  the  Course  of  Study  257 

ence  to  the  furtherance  of  knowledge  as  an  end  in  itself,  its 
connections  with  the  material  of  everyday  life  are  hidden. 
To  the  layman  the  bones  are  a  mere  curiosity.  Until  he  had 
mastered  the  principles  of  zoology,  his  efforts  to  make  any- 
thing out  of  them  would  be  random  and  blind.  From  the 
standpoint  of  the  learner  scientific  form  is  an  ideal  to  be 
achieved,  not  a  starting  point  from  which  to  set  out.  It  is, 
nevertheless,  a  frequent  practice  to  start  in  instruction  with 
the  rudiments  of  science  somewhat  simplified.  The  necessary 
consequence  is  an  isolation  of  science  from  significant  expe- 
rience. The  pupU  learns  symbols  without  the  key  to  their 
meaning.  He  acquires  a  technical  body  of  information  with- 
out abiUty  to  trace  its  connections  with  the  objects  and 
operations  with  which  he  is  familiar  —  often  he  acquires 
simply  a  peculiar  vocabulary. 

There  is  a  strong  temptation  to  assume  that  presenting 
subject  matter  in  its  perfected  form  provides  a  royal  road  to 
learning.  What  more  natural  than  to  suppose  that  the 
inunature  can  be  saved  time  and  energy,  and  be  protected 
from  needless  error  by  commencing  where  competent  inquirers 
have  left  off?  The  outcome  is  written  large  in  the  history 
of  education.  Pupils  begin  their  study  of  science  with  texts 
in  which  the  subject  is  organized  into  topics  according  to 
the  order  of  the  specialist.  Technical  concepts,  with  their 
definitions,  are  introduced  at  the  outset.  Laws  are  intro- 
duced at  a  very'  early  stage,  with  at  best  a  few  indications  of 
the  way  in  which  they  were  arrived  at.  The  pupils  leam  a 
"  science  "  instead  of  learning  the  scientific  way  of  treating 
the  famUiar  material  of  ordinary  experience.  The  method 
of  the  advanced  student  dominates  college  teaching;  the 
approach  of  the  college  is  transferred  into  the  high  school, 
and  so  down  the  line,  with  such  omissions  as  may  make  the 
subject  easier. 

The  chronological  method  which  begins  with  the  experience 
of  the  learner  and  develops  from  that  the  proper  modes  of 


258  Philosophy  of  Education 

scientific  treatment  is  often  called  the  "  psychological " 
method  in  distinction  from  the  logical  method  of  the  expert 
or  specialist.  The  apparent  loss  of  time  involved  is  more  than 
made  up  for  by  the  superior  understanding  and  vital  interest 
secured.  What  the  pupil  learns  he  at  least  understands. 
Moreover  by  following,  in  connection  with  problems  selected 
from  the  material  of  ordinary  acquaintance,  the  methods  by 
which  scientific  men  have  reached  their  perfected  knowledge, 
he  gains  independent  power  to  deal  with  material  within  his 
range,  and  avoids  the  mental  confusion  and  intellectual 
distaste  attendant  upon  studying  matter  whose  meaning  is 
only  symbolic.  Since  the  mass  of  pupils  are  never  going  to 
become  scientific  speciaUsts,  it  is  much  more  important  that 
they  should  get  some  insight  into  what  scientific  method 
means  than  that  they  should  copy  at  long  range  and  second 
hand  the  results  which  scientific  men  have  reached.  Stu- 
dents will  not  go  so  far,  perhaps,  in  the  "  groimd  covered," 
but  they  will  be  sure  and  intelligent  as  far  as  they  do  go. 
And  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  few  who  go  on  to  be  scientific 
experts  will  have  a  better  preparation  than  if  they  had 
been  swamped  with  a  large  mass  of  purely  technical  and 
symbolically  stated  information.  In  fact,  those  who  do 
become  successful  men  of  science  are  those  who  by  their 
own  power  manage  to  avoid  the  pitfalls  of  a  traditional 
scholastic  introduction  into  it. 

The  contrast  between  the  expectations  of  the  men  who  a 
generation  or  two  ago  strove,  against  great  odds,  to  secure  a 
place  for  science  in  education,  and  the  result  generally  achieved 
is  painful.  Herbert  Spencer,  inquiring  what  knowledge  is  of 
most  worth,  concluded  that  from  all  points  of  view  scientific 
knowledge  is  most  valuable.  But  his  argument  unconsciously 
assumed  that  scientific  knowledge  could  be  communicated  in 
a  ready-made  form.  Passing  over  the  methods  by  which  the 
subject  matter  of  our  ordinary  activities  is  transmuted  into 
scientific  form,  it  ignored  the  method  by  which  alone  science 


Science  in  the  Course  of  Study  259 

is  science.  Instruction  has  too  often  proceeded  upon  an 
analogous  plan.  But  there  is  no  magic  attached  to  material 
stated  in  technically  correct  scientitic  form.  When  learned 
in  this  condition  it  remains  a  body  of  inert  information. 
Moreover  its  form  of  statement  removes  it  further  from 
fruitful  contact  with  everyday  experiences  than  does  the 
mode  of  statement  proper  to  hterature.  Nevertheless  that 
the  claims  made  for  instruction  in  science  were  unjustifiable 
does  not  follow.  For  materia i  so  taught  is  not  science  to 
the  pupil. 

Contact  with  things  and  laboratory  exercises,  while  a 
great  improvement  upon  ttxtbooks  arranged  upon  the  de- 
ductive plan,  do  not  of  themselves  suffice  to  meet  the  need. 
While  they  are  an  indispensable  portion  of  scientific  method, 
they  do  not  as  a  matter  of  course  constitute  scientific  method. 
Physical  materials  may  be  manipulated  with  scientific  ap- 
paratus, but  the  materials  may  be  disassociated  in  them- 
selves and  in  the  ways  in  which  they  are  handled,  from  the 
materials  and  processes  used  out  of  school.  The  problems 
dealt  with  may  be  only  problems  of  science :  problems,  that 
is,  which  would  occur  to  one  already  initiated  in  the  science 
of  the  subject.  Our  attention  may  be  devoted  to  getting 
skill  in  technical  manipulation  without  reference  to  the  con- 
nection of  laboratory  exercises  with  a  problem  belonging  to 
subject  matter.  There  is  sometimes  a  ritual  of  laboratory 
instruction  as  well  as  of  heathen  religion.^ 

It  has  been  mentioned,  incidentally,  that  scientific  state- 
ments, or  logical  form,  implies  the  use  of  signs  or  symbols. 
The  statement  applies,  of  course,  to  all  use  of  language. 
But  in  the  vernacular,  the  mind  proceeds  directly  from  the 
symbol    to    the    thing   signified.     Association   with   familiar 

'  Upon  the  positive  side,  the  value  of  problems  arising  in  work  in  the  garden, 
the  shop,  etc.,  may  be  referred  to  (See  p.  235).  The  laboratory  may  be  treated 
as  an  additional  resource  to  supply  conditions  and  appliances  for  die  better 
pursuit  of  these  problems. 


26o  Philosophy  of  Education 

material  is  so  close  that  the  mind  does  not  pause  upon  the 
sign.  The  signs  are  intended  only  to  stand  for  things 
and  acts.  But  scientific  terminology  has  an  additional  use. 
It  is  designed,  as  we  have  seen,  not  to  stand  for  the  things 
directly  in  their  practical  use  in  experience,  but  for  the  things 
placed  in  a  cognitive  system.  Ultimately,  of  course,  they 
denote  the  things  of  our  common  sense  acquaintance.  But 
immediately  they  do  not  designate  them  in  their  common 
context,  but  translated  into  terms  of  scientific  inquiry.  Atoms, 
molecules,  chemical  formulae,  the  mathematical  propositions 
in  the  study  of  physics  —  all  these  have  primarily  an  intel- 
lectual value  and  only  indirectly  an  empirical  value.  They 
represent  instruments  for  the  carrying  on  of  science.  As  in 
the  case  of  other  tools,  their  significance  can  be  learned  only 
by  use.  We  cannot  procure  understanding  of  their  meaning 
by  pointing  to  things,  but  only  by  pointing  to  their  work  when 
they  are  employed  as  part  of  the  technique  of  knowledge. 
Even  the  circle,  square,  etc.,  of  geometry  exhibit  a  difference 
from  the  squares  and  circles  of  familiar  acquaintance,  and 
the  further  one  proceeds  in  mathematical  science  the  greater 
the  remoteness  from  the  everyday  empirical  thing.  Qualities 
which  do  not  count  for  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  about 
spatial  relations  are  left  out ;  those  which  are  important  for 
this  purpose  are  accentuated.  If  one  carries  his  study  far 
enough,  he  will  find  even  the  properties  which  are  significant 
for  spatial  knowledge  giving  way  to  those  which  facilitate 
knowledge  of  other  things  —  perhaps  a  knowledge  of  the 
general  relations  of  number.  There  will  be  nothing  in  the 
conceptual  definitions  even  to  suggest  spatial  form,  size,  or 
direction.  This  does  not  mean  that  they  are  unreal  mental 
inventions,  but  it  indicates  that  direct  physical  quaHties  have 
been  transmuted  into  tools  for  a  special  end  —  the  end  of 
intellectual  organization.  In  every  machine  the  primary 
state  of  material  has  been  modified  by  subordinating  it  to 
use  for  a  purpose.     Not  the  stuff  in  its  oriednal  form  but  in 


Science  in  the  Course  of  Study  261 

its  adaptation  to  an  end  is  important.  No  one  would  have  a 
knowledge  of  a  machine  who  could  enumerate  all  the  materials 
entering  into  its  structure,  but  only  he  who  knew  their  uses 
and  could  tell  why  they  are  employed  as  they  are.  In  like 
fashion  one  has  a  knowledge  of  mathematical  conceptions 
only  when  he  sees  the  problems  in  which  they  function  and 
their  specific  utiUty  in  deaHng  with  these  problems.  "  Know- 
ing "  the  definitions,  rules,  formulae,  etc.,  is  like  knowing 
the  names  of  parts  of  a  machine  without  knowing  what  they 
do.  In  one  case,  as  in  the  other,  the  meaning,  or  intellectual 
content,  is  what  the  element  accomplishes  in  the  system  of 
which  it  is  a  member. 

2.  Science  and  Social  Progress.  —  Assuming  that  the 
development  of  the  direct  knowledge  gained  in  occupations 
of  social  interest  is  carried  to  a  perfected  logical  form,  the 
question  arises  as  to  its  place  in  experience.  In  general, 
the  reply  is  that  science  marks  the  emancipation  of  mind 
from  devotion  to  customary  purposes  and  makes  possible  the 
systematic  pursuit  of  new  ends.  It  is  the  agency  of  progress 
in  action.  Progress  is  sometimes  thought  of  as  consisting 
in  getting  nearer  to  ends  already  sought.  But  this  is  a 
minor  form  of  progress,  for  it  requires  only  improvement  of 
the  means  of  action  or  technical  advance.  More  important 
modes  of  progress  consist  in  enriching  prior  purposes  and  in 
forming  new  ones.  Desires  are  not  a  fixed  quantity,  nor 
does  progress  mean  only  an  increased  amount  of  satisfaction. 
With  increased  culture  and  new  mastery  of  nature,  new  de- 
sires, demands  for  new  qualities  of  satisfaction,  show  them- 
selves, for  intelHgence  perceives  new  possibilities  of  action. 
This  projection  of  new  possibilities  leads  to  search  for  new 
means  of  execution,  and  progress  takes  place ;  while  the  dis- 
covery of  objects  not  already  used  leads  to  suggestion  of  new 
ends. 

That  science  is  the  chief  means  of  perfecting  control  of 
means  of  action  is  witnessed  by  the  great  crop  of  inventions 


26o  Philosophy  of  Education 

material  is  so  close  that  the  mind  does  not  pause  upon  the 
sign.  The  signs  are  intended  only  to  stand  for  things 
and  acts.  But  scientific  terminology  has  an  additional  use. 
It  is  designed,  as  we  have  seen,  not  to  stand  for  the  things 
directly  in  their  practical  use  in  experience,  but  for  the  things 
placed  in  a  cognitive  system.  Ultimately,  of  course,  they 
denote  the  things  of  our  common  sense  acquaintance.  But 
immediately  they  do  not  designate  them  in  their  common 
context,  but  translated  into  terms  of  scientific  inquiry.  Atoms, 
molecules,  chemical  formulae,  the  mathematical  propositions 
in  the  study  of  physics  —  all  these  have  primarily  an  intel- 
lectual value  and  only  indirectly  an  empirical  value.  They 
represent  instruments  for  the  carrying  on  of  science.  As  in 
the  case  of  other  tools,  their  significance  can  be  learned  only 
by  use.  We  cannot  procure  understanding  of  their  meaning 
by  pointing  to  things,  but  only  by  pointing  to  their  work  when 
they  are  employed  as  part  of  the  technique  of  knowledge. 
Even  the  circle,  square,  etc.,  of  geometry  exhibit  a  difference 
from  the  squares  and  circles  of  famiHar  acquaintance,  and 
the  further  one  proceeds  in  mathematical  science  the  greater 
the  remoteness  from  the  everyday  empirical  thing.  Qualities 
which  do  not  count  for  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  about 
spatial  relations  are  left  out ;  those  which  are  important  for 
this  purpose  are  accentuated.  If  one  carries  his  study  far 
enough,  he  will  find  even  the  properties  which  are  significant 
for  spatial  knowledge  giving  way  to  those  which  facilitate 
knowledge  of  other  things  —  perhaps  a  knowledge  of  the 
general  relations  of  number.  There  will  be  nothing  in  the 
conceptual  definitions  even  to  suggest  spatial  form,  size,  or 
direction.  This  does  not  mean  that  they  are  unreal  mental 
inventions,  but  it  indicates  that  direct  physical  quaUties  have 
been  transmuted  into  tools  for  a  special  end  —  the  end  of 
intellectual  organization.  In  every  machine  the  primary 
state  of  material  has  been  modified  by  subordinating  it  to 
use  for  a  purpose.     Not  the  stufif  in  its  original  form  but  in 


Science  in  the  Course  of  Study  261 

its  adaptation  to  an  end  is  important.  No  one  would  have  a 
knowledge  of  a  machine  who  could  enumerate  all  the  materials 
entering  into  its  structure,  but  only  he  who  knew  their  uses 
and  could  tell  why  they  are  employed  as  they  are.  In  like 
fashion  one  has  a  knowledge  of  mathematical  conceptions 
only  when  he  sees  the  problems  in  which  they  function  and 
their  specific  utility  in  dealing  with  these  problems.  "  Know- 
ing "  the  definitions,  rules,  formulae,  etc.,  is  like  knowing 
the  names  of  parts  of  a  machine  without  knowing  what  they 
do.  In  one  case,  as  in  the  other,  the  meaning,  or  intellectual 
content,  is  what  the  element  accomplishes  in  the  system  of 
which  it  is  a  member. 

2.  Science  and  Social  Progress.  —  Assuming  that  the 
development  of  the  direct  knowledge  gained  in  occupations 
of  social  interest  is  carried  to  a  perfected  logical  form,  the 
question  arises  as  to  its  place  in  experience.  In  general, 
the  reply  is  that  science  marks  the  emancipation  of  mind 
from  devotion  to  customary  purposes  and  makes  possible  the 
systematic  pursuit  of  new  ends.  It  is  the  agency  of  progress 
in  action.  Progress  is  sometimes  thought  of  as  consisting 
in  getting  nearer  to  ends  already  sought.  But  this  is  a 
minor  form  of  progress,  for  it  requires  only  improvement  of 
the  means  of  action  or  technical  advance.  More  important 
modes  of  progress  consist  in  enriching  prior  purposes  and  in 
forming  new  ones.  Desires  are  not  a  fixed  quantity,  nor 
does  progress  mean  only  an  increased  amount  of  satisfaction. 
With  increased  culture  and  new  mastery  of  nature,  new  de- 
sires, demands  for  new  qualities  of  satisfaction,  show  them- 
selves, for  intelligence  perceives  new  possibilities  of  action. 
This  projection  of  new  possibilities  leads  to  search  for  new 
means  of  execution,  and  progress  takes  place ;  while  the  dis- 
covery of  objects  not  already  used  leads  to  suggestion  of  new 
ends. 

That  science  is  the  chief  means  of  perfecting  control  of 
means  of  action  is  witnessed  by  the  great  crop  of  inventions 


264  Philosophy  of  Education 

and  inherent  possibilities  of  experience.  By  the  same  token, 
it  changes  the  idea  and  the  operation  of  reason.  Instead  of 
being  something  beyond  experience,  remote,  aloof,  concerned 
with  a  sublime  region  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  expe- 
rienced facts  of  Hf e,  it  is  found  indigenous  in  experience :  — 
the  factor  by  which  past  experiences  are  purified  and  rendere(? 
into  tools  for  discovery  and  advance. 

The  term  '  abstract '  has  a  rather  bad  name  in  popular 
speech,  being  used  to  signify  not  only  that  which  is  abstruse 
and  hard  to  understand,  but  also  that  which  is  far  away 
from  Hfe.  But  abstraction  is  an  indispensable  trait  in  re- 
flective direction  of  activity.  Situations  do  not  literally 
repeat  themselves.  Habit  treats  new  occurrences  as  if  they 
were  identical  with  old  ones ;  it  suffices,  accordingly,  when 
the  different  or  novel  element  is  negligible  for  present  purposes. 
But  when  the  new  element  requires  especial  attention,  ran- 
dom reaction  is  the  sole  recourse  unless  abstraction  is  brought 
into  play.  For  abstraction  deHberately  selects  from  the  sub- 
ject matter  of  former  experiences  that  which  is  thought 
helpful  in  dealing  with  the  new.  It  signifies  conscious  trans- 
fer of  a  meaning  embedded  in  past  experience  for  use  in  a 
new  one.  It  is  the  very  artery  of  intelligence,  of  the  in- 
tentional rendering  of  one  experience  available  for  guidance  of 
another. 

Science  carries  on  this  working  over  of  prior  subject  matter 
on  a  large  scale.  It  aims  to  free  an  experience  from  all  which 
is  purely  personal  and  strictly  immediate ;  it  aims  to  detach 
whatever  it  has  in  common  with  the  subject  matter  of  other 
experiences,  and  which,  being  common,  may  be  saved  for 
further  use.  It  is,  thus,  an  indispensable  factor  in  social  prog- 
ress. In  any  experience  just  as  it  occurs  there  is  much  which, 
while  it  may  be  of  precious  import  to  the  individual  impli- 
cated in  the  experience,  is  peculiar  and  unreduplicable.  From 
the  standpoint  of  science,  this  material  is  accidental,  while 
the  features  which  are  widely  shared  are  essential.    Whatever 


Science  in  the  Course  of  Study  265 

Is  unique  in  the  situation,  since  dependent  upon  the  peculiari- 
ties of  the  individual  and  the  coincidence  of  circumstance,  is 
not  available  for  others;  so  that  unless  what  is  shared  is 
abstracted  and  fixed  by  a  suitable  symbol,  practically  all 
the  value  of  the  experience  may  perish  in  its  passing.  But 
abstraction  and  the  use  of  terms  to  record  what  is  abstracted 
put  the  net  value  of  individual  experience  at  the  permanent 
disposal  of  mankind.  No  one  can  foresee  in.  detail  when  or 
how  it  may  be  of  further  use.  The  man  of  science  in  develop- 
ing his  abstractions  is  like  a  manufacturer  of  tools  who  does 
not  know  who  will  use  them  nor  when.  But  intellectual  tools 
are  indefinitely  more  flexible  in  their  range  of  adaptation  than 
other  mechanical  tools. 

Generalization  is  the  counterpart  of  abstraction.  It  is 
the  functioning  of  an  abstraction  in  its  appHcation  to  a  new 
concrete  experience,  —  its  extension  to  clarify  and  direct  new 
situations.  Reference  to  these  possible  applications  is  neces- 
sary in  order  that  the  abstraction  may  be  fruitful,  instead  of 
a  barren  formalism  ending  in  itself.  Generalization  is  essen- 
tially a  social  device.  When  men  identified  their  interests 
exclusively  with  the  concerns  of  a  narrow  group,  their  general- 
izations were  correspondingly  restricted.  The  viewpoint 
did  not  permit  a  wide  and  free  survey.  Men's  thoughts 
were  tied  down  to  a  contracted  space  and  a  short  time,  — 
limited  to  their  own  established  customs  as  a  measure  of  all 
possible  values.  Scientific  abstraction  and  generalization 
are  equivalent  to  taking  the  point  of  view  of  any  man,  what- 
ever his  location  in  time  and  space.  While  this  emancipation 
from  the  conditions  and  episodes  of  concrete  experiences 
accounts  for  the  remoteness,  the  "  abstractness,"  of  science, 
it  also  accounts  for  its  wide  and  free  range  of  fruitful  novel 
applications  in  practice. 

Terms  and  propositions  record,  fix,  and  convey  what  is 
abstracted.  A  meaning  detached  from  a  given  experience 
Ccinnot  remain  hanging  in  the  air.     It  must  acquire  a  local 


266  Philosophy  of  Education 

habitation.  Names  give  abstract  meanings  a  physical  locus 
and  body.  Formulation  is  thus  not  an  after-thought  or  by- 
product; it  is  essential  to  the  completion  of  the  work  of 
thought.  Persons  know  many  things  which  they  cannot 
express,  but  such  knowledge  remains  practical,  direct,  and 
personal.  An  individual  can  use  it  for  himself;  he  may  be 
able  to  act  upon  it  with  efficiency.  Artists  and  executives 
often  have  their  knowledge  in  this  state.  But  it  is  personal, 
untransferable,  and,  as  it  were,  instinctive.  To  formulate 
the  significance  of  an  experience  a  man  must  take  into  con- 
scious account  the  experiences  of  others.  He  must  try  to 
find  a  standpoint  which  includes  the  experience  of  others  as 
well  as  his  own.  Otherwise  his  communication  cannot  be 
understood.  He  talks  a  language  which  no  one  else  knows. 
While  Hterary  art  furnishes  the  supreme  successes  in  stating 
of  experiences  so  that  they  are  vitaUy  significant  to  others, 
the  vocabulary  of  science  is  designed,  in  another  fashion,  to 
express  the  meaning  of  experienced  things  in  symbols  which 
any  one  will  know  who  studies  the  science.  Esthetic  formu- 
lation reveals  and  enhances  the  meaning  of  experiences 
one  already  has;  scientific  formulation  supplies  one  with 
tools  for  constructing  new  experiences  with  transformed 
meanings. 

To  sum  up :  Science  represents  the  office  of  intelligence, 
in  projection  and  control  of  new  experiences,  pursued  sys- 
tematically, intentionally,  and  on  a  scale  due  to  freedom 
from  limitations  of  habit.  It  is  the  sole  instnmientality  of 
conscious,  as  distinct  from  accidental,  progress.  And  if  its 
generality,  its  remoteness  from  individual  conditions,  confer 
upon  it  a  certain  technicahty  and  aloofness,  these  qualities 
are  very  different  from  those  of  merely  speculative  theorizing. 
The  latter  are  in  permanent  dislocation  from  practice;  the 
former  are  temporarily  detached  for  the  sake  of  wider  and 
freer  application  in  later  concrete  action.  There  is  a  kind  of 
idle  theory  which  is  antithetical  to  practice;  but  genuinely 


Science  in  the  Course  of  Sttidy  26^ 

scientific  theory  falls  within  practice  as  the  agency  of  its 
expansion  and  its  direction  to  new  possibilities. 

3.  Naturalism  and  Humanism  in  Education.  —  There 
exists  an  educational  tradition  which  opposes  science  to 
literature  and  history  in  the  curriculum.  The  quarrel  be- 
tween the  representatives  of  the  two  interests  is  easily  ex- 
plicable historically.  Literature  and  language  and  a  literary 
philosophy  were  intrenched  in  all  higher  institutions  of  learn- 
ing before  experimental  science  came  into  being.  The  latter 
had  naturally  to  win  its  way.  No  fortified  and  protected  in- 
terest  readily  surrenders  any  monopoly  it  may  possess.  But 
the  assumption,  from  whichever  side,  that  language  and 
literary  products  are  exclusively  humanistic  in  quahty,  and 
that  science  is  purely  physical  in  import,  is  a  false  notion 
which  tends  to  cripple  the  educational  use  of  both  studies, 
Human  Ufe  does  not  occur  in  a  vacuum,  nor  is  nature  a  mere 
stage  setting  for  the  enactment  of  its  drama  {Ante,  p.  247). 
Man's  life  is  bound  up  in  the  processes  of  nature ;  his  career, 
for  success  or  defeat,  depends  upon  the  way  in  which  nature 
enters  it.  Man's  power  of  deliberate  control  of  his  own  af- 
fairs depends  upon  abihty  to  direct  natural  energies  to  use : 
an  ability  which  is  in  turn  dependent  upon  insight  into  nature's 
processes.  Whatever  natural  science  may  be  for  the  specialist, 
for  educational  purposes  it  is  knowledge  of  the  conditions  of 
human  action.  To  be  aware  of  the  medium  in  which  social 
intercourse  goes  on,  and  of  the  means  and  obstacles  to  its 
progressive  development  is  to  be  in  conmiand  of  a  knowledge 
which  is  thoroughly  hiunanistic  in  quality.  One  who  is  igno- 
rant of  the  history  of  science  is  ignorant  of  the  struggles  by 
which  mankind  has  passed  from  routine  and  caprice,  from 
superstitious  subjection  to  nature,  from  efforts  to  use  it 
magically,  to  intellectual  self-possession.  That  science  may 
be  taught  as  a  set  of  formal  and  technical  exercises  is  only  too 
true.  This  happens  whenever  information  about  the  world 
is  made  an  end  in  itself.    The  failure  of  such  instruction  tP 


•^  Philosophy  of  Education 

procure  culture  is  not,  however,  evidence  of  the  antithesis  of 
natural  knowledge  to  humanistic  concern,  but  evidence  of  a 
wrong  educational  attitude. 

Dislike  to  employ  scientific  knowledge  as  it  functions  in 
men's  occupations  is  itself  a  survival  of  an  aristocratic  culture. 
The  notion  that  "  applied "  knowledge  is  somehow  less 
worthy  than  "  pure  "  knowledge,  was  natural  to  a  society  in 
which  all  useful  work  was  performed  by  slaves  and  serfs, 
and  in  which  industry  was  controlled  by  the  models  set  by 
custom  rather  than  by  intelligence.  Science,  or  the  highest 
knowing,  was  then  identified  with  pure  theorizing,  apart  from 
all  application  in  the  uses  of  life ;  and  knowledge  relating  to 
useful  arts  suffered  the  stigma  attaching  to  the  classes  who 
engaged  in  them  (See  below,  Ch.  XIX).  The  idea  of 
science  thus  generated  persisted  after  science  had  itself 
adopted  the  appliances  of  the  arts,  using  them  for  the  pro- 
duction of  knowledge,  and  after  the  rise  of  democracy.  Tak- 
ing theory  just  as  theory,  however,  that  which  concerns 
humanity  is  of  more  significance  for  man  than  that  which 
concerns  a  merely  physical  world.  In  adopting  the  criterion 
of  knowledge  laid  down  by  a  literary  culture,  aloof  from  the 
practical  needs  of  the  mass  of  men,  the  educational  advocates 
of  scientific  education  put  themselves  at  a  strategic  disadvan- 
tage. So  far  as  they  adopt  the  idea  of  science  appropriate  to 
its  experimental  method  and  to  the  movements  of  a  democratic 
and  industrial  society,  they  have  no  difficulty  in  showing  that 
natural  science  is  more  humanistic  than  an  alleged  humanisni 
which  bases  its  educational  schemes  upon  the  specialized 
interests  of  a  leisure  class. 

For,  as  we  have  already  stated,  humanistic  studies  when 
set  in  opposition  to  study  of  nature  are  hampered.  They 
tend  to  reduce  themselves  to  exclusively  literary  and  Hnguistic 
studies,  which  in  turn  tend  to  shrink  to  "  the  classics,"  to 
languages  no  longer  spoken.  For  modem  languages  may 
evidently  be  put  to  use,  and  hence  fall  imder  the  ban.     It 


Science  in  the  Course  of  Study  269 

would  be  hard  to  find  anything  in  history  more  ironical  than 
the  educational  practices  which  have  identified  the  "  humani- 
ties "  exclusively  with  a  knowledge  of  Greek  and  Latin. 
Greek  and  Roman  art  and  institutions  made  such  important 
contributions  to  our  civilization  that  there  should  always  be 
the  amplest  opportunities  for  making  their  acquaintance. 
But  to  regard  them  as  par  excellence  the  humane  studies 
involves  a  dehberate  neglect  of  the  possibiUties  of  the  subject 
matter  which  is  accessible  in  education  to  the  masses,  and 
tends  to  cultivate  a  narrow  snobbery :  that  of  a  learned  class 
whose  insignia  are  the  accidents  of  exclusive  opportunity. 
Knowledge  is  humanistic  in  quality  not  because  it  is  about 
human  products  in  the  past,  but  because  of  what  it  does  in 
liberating  human  intelHgence  and  human  sympathy.  Any 
subject  matter  which  accomplishes  this  result  is  humane,  and 
any  subject  matter  which  does  not  accomplish  it  is  not  even 
educational. 

Summary.  —  Science  represents  the  fruition  of  the  cogni- 
tive factors  in  experience.  Instead  of  contenting  itself  with 
a  mere  statement  of  what  commends  itself  to  personal  or 
customary  experience,  it  aims  at  a  statement  which  will 
reveal  the  sources,  grounds,  and  consequences  of  a  belief. 
The  achievement  of  this  aim  gives  logical  character  to  the 
statements.  Educationally,  it  has  to  be  noted  that  logical 
characteristics  of  method,  since  they  belong  to  subject  matter 
which  has  reached  a  high  degree  of  intellectual  elaboration, 
are  different  from  the  method  of  the  learner  —  the  chronologi- 
cal order  of  passing  from  a  cruder  to  a  more  refined  intellec- 
tual quality  of  experience.  When  this  fact  is  ignored,  science 
is  treated  as  so  much  bare  information,  which  however  is  less 
interesting  and  more  remote  than  ordinary  information,  being 
stated  in  an  unusual  and  technical  vocabulary.  The  function 
which  science  has  to  perform  in  the  curriculum  is  that  which 
it  has  performed  for  the  race :  emancipation  from  local  and 
temporary  incidents  of  experience,  ind  the  opening  of  intel- 


27©  Philosophy  of  Education 

lectual  vistas  unobscured  by  the  accidents  of  personal  habit 
and  predilection.  The  logical  traits  of  abstraction,  general- 
ization, and  definite  formulation  are  all  associated  with  this 
function.  In  emancipating  an  idea  from  the  particular  con- 
text in  which  it  originated  and  giving  it  a  wider  reference 
the  results  of  the  experience  of  any  individual  are  put  at  the 
disposal  of  all  men.  Thus  ultimately  and  philosophically 
science  is  the  organ  of  general  social  progress. 


CHAPTER  XVin 


EDUCATIONAL  VALUES 


The  considerations  involved  in  a  discussion  of  educational 
values  have  already  been  brought  out  in  the  discussion  of  aims 
and  interests.  The  specific  values  usually  discussed  in  educa- 
tional theories  coincide  with  aims  which  are  usually  urged. 
They  are  such  things  as  utiKty,  culture,  information,  prepara- 
tion for  social  efficiency,  mental  discipline  or  power,  and  so  on. 
The  aspect  of  these  aims  in  virtue  of  which  they  are  valuable 
has  been  treated  in  our  analysis  of  the  nature  of  interest,  and 
there  is  no  difference  between  speaking  of  art  as  an  interest 
or  concern  and  referring  to  it  as  a  value.  It  happens,  however, 
that  discussion  of  values  has  usually  been  centered  about  a 
consideration  of  the  various  ends  subserved  by  specific  sub- 
jects of  the  curriculum.  It  has  been  a  part  of  the  attempt  to 
justify  those  subjects  by  pointing  out  the  significant  contri- 
butions to  life  accruing  from  their  study.  An  explicit  dis- 
cussion of  educational  values  thus  affords  an  opportunity  for 
reviewing  the  prior  discussion  of  aims  and  interests  on  one 
hand  and  of  the  curriculum  on  the  other,  by  bringing  them  into 
coimection  with  one  another. 

1.  The  Nature  of  Realization  or  Appreciation.  —  Much  of 
our  experience  is  indirect ;  it  is  dependent  upon  signs  which 
intervene  between  the  things  and  ourselves,  signs  which  stand 
for  or  represent  the  former.  It  is  one  thing  to  have  been 
engaged  in  war,  to  have  shared  its  dangers  and  hardships; 
it  is  another  thing  to  hear  or  read  about  it.  All  language, 
all  symbols,  are  implements  of  an  indirect  experience;  in 
technical  language  the  experience  which  is  procured  by  theii 

271 


272  Philosophy  of  Education 

means  is  '  mediated.'  It  stands  in  contrast  with  an  im- 
mediate, direct  experience,  something  in  which  we  take  part 
vitally  and  at  first  hand,  instead  of  through  the  intervention 
of  representative  media.  As  we  have  seen,  the  scope  of  per- 
sonal, vitally  direct  experience  is  very  limited.  If  it  were  not 
for  the  intervention  of  agencies  for  representing  absent  and 
distant  affairs,  our  experience  would  remain  almost  on  the 
level  of  that  of  the  brutes.  Every  step  from  savagery  to 
civilization  is  dependent  upon  the  invention  of  media  which 
enlarge  the  range  of  purely  immediate  experience  and  give  it 
deepened  as  well  as  wider  meaning  by  connecting  it  with 
things  which  can  only  be  signified  or  symbolized.  It  is  doubt- 
less this  fact  which  is  the  cause  of  the  disposition  to  identify 
an  uncultivated  person  with  an  illiterate  person  —  so  de- 
pendent are  we  on  letters  for  effective  representative  or  in- 
direct experience. 

At  the  same  time  (as  we  have  also  had  repeated  occasion  to 
see)  there  is  always  a  danger  that  symbols  will  not  be  truly 
representative;  danger  that  instead  of  really  calling  up  the 
absent  and  remote  in  a  way  to  make  it  enter  a  present  experi- 
ence, the  linguistic  media  of  representation  will  become  an 
end  in  themselves.  Formal  education  is  peculiarly  exposed  to 
this  danger,  with  the  result  that  when  Hteracy  supervenes, 
mere  bookishness,  what  is  popularly  termed  the  academic, 
too  often  comes  with  it.  In  colloquial  speech,  the  phrase  a 
"  realizing  sense  "  is  used  to  express  the  urgency,  warmth,  and 
intimacy  of  a  direct  experience  in  contrast  with  the  remote, 
pallid,  and  coldly  detached  quality  of  a  representative  experi- 
ence. The  terms  "  mental  realization  "  and  "  appreciation  " 
(or  genuine  appreciation)  are  more  elaborate  names  for  the 
realizing  sense  of  a  thing.  It  is  not  possible  to  define  these 
ideas  except  by  synonyms,  like  *  coming  home  to  one,* 
*  really  taking  it  in,'  etc.,  for  the  only  way  to  appreciate 
what  is  meant  by  a  direct  experience  of  a  thing  is  by  having 
it.     But  it  is  the  difference  between  reading  a  technical  de- 


Educational  V allies  273 

scription  of  a  picture,  and  seeing  it ;  or  between  just  seeing  it 
and  being  moved  by  it;  between  learning  mathematical 
equations  about  light  and  being  carried  away  by  some  pecul- 
iarly glorious  illumination  of  a  misty  landscape. 

We  are  thus  met  by  the  danger  of  the  tendency  of  technique 
and  other  purely  representative  forms  to  encroach  upon 
the  sphere  of  direct  appreciations;  in  other  words,  the 
tendency  to  assume  that  pupils  have  a  foundation  of  direct 
realization  of  situations  sufficient  for  the  superstructure  of 
representative  experience  erected  by  formulated  school 
studies.  This  is  not  simply  a  matter  of  quantity  or  bulk. 
Sufficient  direct  experience  is  even  more  a  matter  of  quality ; 
it  must  be  of  a  sort  to  connect  readily  and  fruitfully  with 
the  symbolic  material  of  instruction.  Before  teaching  can 
safely  enter  upon  conveying  facts  and  ideas  through  the 
media  of  signs,  schooling  must  provide  genuine  situations  in 
which  personal  participation  brings  home  the  import  of  the 
material  and  the  problems  which  it  conveys.  From  the  stand- 
point of  the  pupil,  the  resulting  experiences  are  worth  while 
on  their  own  account;  from  the  standpoint  of  the  teacher, 
they  are  also  means  of  supplying  subject  matter  required  for 
understanding  instruction  involving  signs,  and  of  evoking  at- 
titudes of  open-mindedness  and  concern  as  to  the  material 
symbolically  conveyed. 

In  the  outline  given  of  the  theory  of  educative  subject 
matter,  the  demand  for  this  background  of  realization  or 
appreciation  is  met  by  the  provision  made  for  play  and 
active  occupations  embodying  typical  situations.  Nothing 
need  be  added  to  what  has  already  been  said  except  to 
point  out  that  while  the  discussion  dealt  explicitly  with  the 
subject  matter  of  primary  education,  where  the  demand  for 
the  available  background  of  direct  experience  is  most  obvious, 
the  principle  applies  to  the  primary  or  elementary  phase  of 
every  subject.  The  first  and  basic  function  of  laboratory 
work,  for  example,  in  a  high  school  or  college  in  a  new  field,  is 


274  Philosophy  of  Education 

to  familiarize  the  student  at  first  hand  with  a  certain  range  of 
facts  and  problems  —  to  give  him  a  *  feeling '  for  them. 
Getting  command  of  technique  and  of  methods  of  reaching 
and  testing  generalizations  is  at  first  secondary  to  getting 
appreciation.  As  regards  the  primary  school  activities,  it 
is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  fundamental  intent  is  not  to 
amuse  nor  to  convey  information  with  a  minimum  of  vex- 
ation nor  yet  to  acquire  skill,  —  though  these  results  may 
accrue  as  by-products,  —  but  to  enlarge  and  enrich  the  scope 
of  experience,  and  to  keep  alert  and  effective  the  interest 
in  intellectual  progress. 

The  rubric  of  appreciation  supplies  an  appropriate  head  for 
bringing  out  three  further  principles :  the  nature  of  effective 
or  real  (as  distinct  from  nominal)  standards  of  value;  the 
place  of  the  imagination  in  appreciative  realizations ;  and 
the  place  of  the  fine  arts  in  the  course  of  study. 

I.  The  nature  of  standards  of  valuation.  Every  adult 
has  acquired,  in  the  course  of  his  prior  experience  and  educa- 
tion, certain  measures  of  the  worth  of  various  sorts  of  experi' 
ence.  He  has  learned  to  look  upon  qualities  like  honesty, 
dmiabiHty,  perseverance,  loyalty,  as  moral  goods ;  upon  certain 
classics  of  literature,  painting,  music,  as  aesthetic  values,  and  so 
on.  Not  only  this,  but  he  has  learned  certain  rules  for  these 
values  —  the  golden  rule  in  morals ;  harmony,  balance,  etc., 
proportionate  distribution  in  aesthetic  goods ;  definition,  clar- 
ity, system  in  intellectual  accomplishments.  These  principles 
are  so  important  as  standards  of  judging  the  worth  of  new 
experiences  that  parents  and  instructors  are  always  tending  to 
teach  them  directly  to  the  young.  They  overlook  the  danger 
that  standards  so  taught  will  be  merely  symbolic;  that  is, 
largely  conventional  and  verbal.  In  reaUty,  working  as  dis- 
tinct from  professed  standards  depend  upon  what  an  indi- 
vidual has  himself  specifically  appreciated  to  be  deeply 
significant  in  concrete  situations.  An  individual  may  have 
learned   that  certain  characteristics  are   conventionally  es- 


Educational  Valtces  275 

teemed  in  music;  he  may  be  able  to  converse  with  some 
correctness  about  classic  music;  he  may  even  honestly  be- 
lieve that  these  traits  constitute  his  own  musical  standards. 
But  if  in  his  own  past  experience,  what  he  has  been  most 
accustomed  to  and  has  most  enjoyed  is  ragtime,  his  active 
or  working  measures  of  valuation  are  fixed  on  the  ragtime 
level.  The  appeal  actually  made  to  him  in  his  own  personal 
reahzation  fixes  his  attitude  much  more  deeply  than  what 
he  has  been  taught  as  the  proper  thing  to  say ;  his  habitual 
disposition  thus  fixed  forms  his  real  "  norm  "  of  valuation  in 
subsequent  musical  experiences. 

Probably  few  would  deny  this  statement  as  to  musical 
taste.  But  it  applies  equally  well  in  judgments  of  moral 
and  intellectual  worth.  A  youth  who  has  had  repeated  ex- 
perience of  the  full  meaning  of  the  value  of  kindliness 
toward  others  built  into  his  disposition  has  a  measure  of  the 
worth  of  generous  treatment  of  others.  Without  this  vital 
appreciation,  the  duty  and  virtue  of  unselfishness  impressed 
upon  him  by  others  as  a  standard  remains  purely  a  matter 
of  symbols  which  he  cannot  adequately  translate  into  realities. 
His  *  knowledge  '  is  second-handed ;  it  is  only  a  knowledge 
that  others  prize  unselfishness  as  an  excellence,  and  esteem  him 
in  the  degree  in  which  he  exhibits  it.  Thus  there  grows  up  a 
split  between  a  person's  professed  standards  and  his  actual 
ones.  A  person  may  be  aware  of  the  results  of  this  struggle 
between  his  inclinations  and  his  theoretical  opinions ;  he 
suffers  from  the  conflict  between  doing  what  is  really  dear  to 
him  and  what  he  has  learned  will  win  the  approval  of  others. 
But  of  the  split  itself  he  is  unaware ;  the  result  is  a  kind  of 
unconscious  hypocrisy,  an  instability  of  disposition.  In 
similar  fashion,  a  pupil  who  has  worked  through  some  con- 
fused  intellectual  situation  and  fought  his  way  to  clearing 
up  obscurities  in  a  definite  outcome,  appreciates  the  value 
of  clarity  and  definition.  He  has  a  standard  which  can  be 
depended  upon.     He  may  be  trained  externally  to  go  through 


276  Philosophy  of  Education 

certain  motions  of  analysis  and  division  of  subject  matter  and 
may  acquire  information  about  the  value  of  these  processes 
as  standard  logical  functions,  but  unless  it  somehow  comes 
home  to  him  at  some  point  as  an  appreciation  of  his  own, 
the  significance  of  the  logical  norms  —  so-called  —  remains  as 
much  an  external  piece  of  information  as,  say,  the  names  of 
rivers  in  China.  He  may  be  able  to  recite,  but  the  recital  is 
a  mechanical  rehearsal. 

It  is,  then,  a  serious  mistake  to  regard  appreciation  as  if  it 
were  confined  to  such  things  as  literature  and  pictures  and 
music.  Its  scope  is  as  comprehensive  as  the  work  of  education 
itself.  The  formation  of  habits  is  a  purely  mechanical  thing 
unless  habits  are  also  tastes  —  habitual  modes  of  preference 
and  esteem,  an  effective  sense  of  excellence.  There  are  ad- 
equate grounds  for  asserting  that  the  premium  so  often  put 
in  schools  upon  external  '  discipline,'  and  upon  marks  and 
rewards,  upon  promotion  and  keeping  back,  are  the  obverse 
of  the  lack  of  attention  given  to  Hfe  situations  in  which  the 
meaning  of  facts,  ideas,  principles,  and  problems  is  vitally 
brought  home. 

2.  Appreciative  realizations  are  to  be  distinguished  from 
symbohc  or  representative  experiences.  They  are  not  to  be 
distinguished  from  the  work  of  the  intellect  or  understand- 
ing. Only  a  personal  response  involving  imagination  can 
possibly  procure  reaHzation  even  of  pure  "  facts."  The 
imagination  is  the  medium  of  appreciation  in  every  field. 
The  engagement  of  the  imagination  is  the  only  thing  that 
makes  any  activity  more  than  mechanical.  Unfortunately, 
it  is  too  customary  to  identify  the  imaginative  with  the  imagi- 
nary, rather  than  with  a  warm  and  intimate  taking  in  of  the 
full  scope  of  a  situation.  This  leads  to  an  exaggerated  esti- 
mate of  fairy  tales,  myths,  fanciful  symbols,  verse,  and  some- 
thing labeled  "  Fine  Art,"  as  agencies  for  developing  imagina- 
tion and  appreciation ;  and,  by  neglecting  imaginative  vision 
in  other  matters,  leads  to  methods  which  reduce  much  instruc- 


Educational  Valties  277 

tion  to  an  unimaginative  acquiring  of  specialized  skill  and  amass- 
ing of  load  of  information.  Theory,  and  —  to  some  extent  — 
practice,  have  advanced  far  enough  to  recognize  that  play- 
activity  is  an  imaginative  enterprise.  But  it  is  still  usual  to 
regard  this  activity  as  a  specially  marked-off  stage  of  childish 
growth,  and  to  overlook  the  fact  that  the  difference  between 
play  and  what  is  regarded  as  serious  employment  should  be 
not  a  difference  between  the  presence  and  absence  of  imagi- 
nation, but  a  difference  in  the  materials  with  which  imagina- 
tion is  occupied.  The  result  is  an  unwholesome  exaggeration 
of  the  phantastic  and  *  unreal '  phases  of  childish  play  and 
a  deadly  reduction  of  serious  occupation  to  a  routine  efficiency 
prized  simply  for  its  external  tangible  results.  Achieve- 
ment comes  to  denote  the  sort  of  thing  that  a  well-planned 
machine  can  do  better  than  a  human  being  can,  and  the  main 
effect  of  education,  the  achieving  of  a  Hfe  of  rich  significance, 
drops  by  the  wayside.  Meantime  mind-wandering  and  way- 
ward fancy  are  nothing  but  the  unsuppressible  imagination 
cut  loose  from  concern  with  what  is  done. 

An  adequate  recognition  of  the  play  of  imagination  as  the 
medium  of  reaHzation  of  every  kind  of  thing  which  lies  b& 
yond  the  scope  of  direct  physical  response  is  the  sole  waj 
of  escape  from  mechanical  methods  in  teaching.  The  empha. 
sis  put  in  this  book,  in  accord  with  many  tendencies  in  con^ 
temporary  education,  upon  activity,  will  be  misleading  if  it 
is  not  recognized  that  the  imagination  is  as  much  a  normal  and 
integral  part  of  human  activity  as  is  muscular  movement. 
The  educative  value  of  manual  activities  and  of  laboratory 
exercises,  as  well  as  of  play,  depends  upon  the  extent  in  which 
they  aid  in  bringing  about  a  sensing  of  the  meaning  of  what  is 
going  on.  In  effect,  if  not  in  name,  they  are  dramatizations. 
Their  utilitarian  value  in  forming  habits  of  skill  to  be  used  for 
tangible  results  is  important,  but  not  when  isolated  from 
the  appreciative  side.  Were  it  not  for  the  accompanying 
play  of  imagination,  there  would  be  no  road  from  a  direct 


278  Philosophy  of  Education 

activity  to  representative  knowledge ;  for  it  is  by  imagination 
that  symbols  are  translated  over  into  a  direct  meaning  and 
integrated  with  a  narrower  activity  so  as  to  expand  and  enrich 
it.  When  the  representative  creative  imagination  is  made 
merely  literary  and  mythological,  symbols  are  rendered 
mere  means  of  directing  physical  reactions  of  the  organs  of 
speech. 

3.  In  the  account  previously  given  nothing  was  explicitly 
said  about  the  place  of  hterature  and  the  fine  arts  in  the 
course  of  study.  The  omission  at  that  point  was  intentional. 
At  the  outset,  there  is  no  sharp  demarcation  of  useful,  or  in- 
dustrial, arts  and  fine  arts.  The  activities  mentioned  in 
Chapter  XV  contain  within  themselves  the  factors  later  dis- 
criminated into  fine  and  useful  arts.  As  engaging  the  emotions 
and  the  imagination,  they  have  the  qualities  which  give  the 
fine  arts  their  quaHty.  As  demanding  method  or  skill,  the 
adaptation  of  tools  to  materials  with  constantly  increasing 
perfection,  they  involve  the  element  of  technique  indispen- 
sable to  artistic  production.  From  the  standpoint  of  product, 
or  the  work  of  art,  they  are  naturally  defective,  though  even 
in  this  respect  when  they  comprise  genuine  appreciation  they 
often  have  a  rudimentary  charm.  As  experiences  they  have 
both  an  artistic  and  an  aesthetic  quaHty.  When  they  emerge 
into  activities  which  are  tested  by  their  product  and  when  the 
socially  serviceable  value  of  the  product  is  emphasized,  they 
pass  into  useful  or  industrial  arts.  When  they  develop  in  the 
direction  of  an  enhanced  appreciation  of  the  immediate 
qualities  which  appeal  to  taste,  they  grow  into  fine  arts. 

In  one  of  its  meanings,  appreciation  is  opposed  to  depreci- 
ation. It  denotes  an  enlarged,  an  intensified  prizing,  not 
merely  a  prizing,  much  less  —  like  depreciation  —  a  lowered 
and  degraded  prizing.  This  enhancement  of  the  qualities 
which  make  any  ordinary  experience  appealing,  appropriable 
—  capable  of  full  assimilation  —  and  enjoyable,  constitutes 
the  prime  function  of  Hterature.  music,  drawing,  painting, 


Educational  Values  279 

etc.,  in  education.  They  are  not  the  exclusive  agencies  of 
appreciation  in  the  most  general  sense  of  that  word;  but 
they  are  the  chief  agencies  of  an  intensified,  enhanced  ap- 
preciation. As  such,  they  are  not  only  intrinsically  and 
directly  enjoyable,  but  they  serve  a  purpose  beyond  them- 
selves. They  have  the  office,  in  increased  degree,  of  all 
appreciation  in  fixing  taste,  in  forming  standards  for  the  worth 
of  later  experiences.  They  arouse  discontent  with  conditions 
which  fall  below  their  measure ;  they  create  a  demand  for  sur- 
roundings coming  up  to  their  own  level.  They  reveal  a  depth 
and  range  of  meaning  in  experiences  which  otherwise  might 
be  mediocre  and  trivial.  They  supply,  that  is,  organs  of 
vision.  Moreover,  in  their  fullness  they  represent  the  con- 
centration and  consummation  of  elements  of  good  which 
are  otherwise  scattered  and  incomplete.  They  select  and 
focus  the  elements  of  enjoyable  worth  which  make  any  experi- 
ence directly  enjoyable.  They  are  not  luxuries  of  education, 
but  emphatic  expressions  of  that  which  makes  any  education 
worth  while. 

2.  The  Valuation  of  Studies.  —  The  theory  of  educational 
values  involves  not  only  an  account  of  the  nature  of  appreci- 
ation as  fixing  the  measure  of  subsequent  valuations,  but 
an  account  of  the  specific  directions  in  which  these  valuations 
occur.  To  value  means  primarily  to  prize,  to  esteem;  but 
secondarily  it  means  to  apprize,  to  estimate.  It  means,  that 
is,  the  act  of  cherishing  something,  holding  it  dear,  and  also 
the  act  of  passing  judgment  upon  the  nature  and  amount  of 
its  value  as  compared  with  something  else.  To  value  in  the 
latter  sense  is  to  valuate  or  evaluate.  The  distinction  coin- 
cides with  that  sometimes  made  between  intrinsic  and  instru- 
mental values.  Intrinsic  values  are  not  objects  of  judgment, 
they  cannot  (as  intrinsic)  be  compared,  or  regarded  as  greater 
and  less,  better  or  worse.  They  are  invaluable;  and  if  a 
thing  is  invaluable,  it  is  neither  more  nor  less  so  than  any  other 
invaluable.    But  occasions  present  themselves  when   it  is 


28o  Philosophy  of  Education 

necessary  to  choose,  when  we  must  let  one  thing  go  in  order 
to  take  another.  This  estabHshes  an  order  of  preference,  a 
greater  and  less,  better  and  worse.  Things  judged  or  passed 
upon  have  to  be  estimated  in  relation  to  some  third  thing, 
some  further  end.  With  respect  to  that,  they  are  means, 
or  instrumental  values. 

We  may  imagine  a  man  who  at  one  time  thoroughly  enjoys 
converse  with  his  friends,  at  another  the  hearing  of  a  sym- 
phony; at  another  the  eating  of  his  meals;  at  another  the 
reading  of  a  book ;  at  another  the  earning  of  money,  and  so 
on.  As  an  appreciative  realization,  each  of  these  is  an  intrinsic 
value.  It  occupies  a  particular  place  in  life;  it  serves  its 
own  end,  which  cannot  be  suppHed  by  a  substitute.  There 
is  no  question  of  comparative  value,  and  hence  none  of  valu- 
ation. Each  is  the  specific  good  which  it  is,  and  that  is  all 
that  can  be  said.  In  its  own  place,  none  is  a  means  to  any- 
thmg  beyond  itself.  But  there  may  arise  a  situation  in  which 
they  compete  or  conflict,  in  which  a  choice  has  to  be  made. 
Now  comparison  comes  in.  Since  a  choice  has  to  be  made, 
we  want  to  know  the  respective  claims  of  each  competitor. 
What  is  to  be  said  for  it?  What  does  it  offer  in  comparison 
with,  as  balanced  over  against,  some  other  possibility?  Rais- 
ing these  questions  means  that  a  particular  good  is  no  longer 
an  end  in  itself,  an  intrinsic  good.  For  if  it  were,  its  claims 
would  be  incomparable,  imperative.  The  question  is  now  as 
to  its  status  as  a  means  of  realizing  something  else,  which  is 
then  the  invaluable  of  that  situation.  If  a  man  has  just 
eaten,  or  if  he  is  well  fed  generally  and  the  opportunity  to 
hear  music  is  a  rarity,  he  will  probably  prefer  the  music  to 
eating.  In  the  given  situation  that  will  render  the  greater 
contribution.  If  he  is  starving,  or  if  he  is  satiated  with  music 
for  the  time  being,  he  will  naturally  judge  food  to  have  the 
greater  worth.  In  the  abstract  or  at  large,  apart  from  the 
needs  of  a  particular  situation  in  which  choice  has  to  be  made, 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  degrees  or  order  of  value. 


Educational  Values  281 

Certain  conclusions  follow  with  respect  to  educational 
values.  We  cannot  establish  a  hierarchy  of  values  among 
studies.  It  is  futile  to  attempt  to  arrange  them  in  an  order, 
beginning  with  one  having  least  worth  and  going  on  to  that 
of  maximum  value.  In  so  far  as  any  study  has  a  unique  or 
irreplaceable  function  in  experience,  in  so  far  as  it  marks  a 
characteristic  enrichment  of  life,  its  worth  is  intrinsic  or 
incomparable.  Since  education  is  not  a  means  to  Hving,  but 
is  identical  with  the  operation  of  hving  a  Ufe  which  is  fruit- 
ful and  inherently  significant,  the  only  ultimate  value  which 
can  be  set  up  is  just  the  process  of  living  itself.  And  this  is 
not  an  end  to  which  studies  and  activities  are  subordinate 
means;  it  is  the  whole  of  which  they  are  ingredients.  And 
what  has  been  said  about  appreciation  means  that  every  study 
in  one  of  its  aspects  ought  to  have  just  such  ultimate  signifi- 
cance. It  is  as  true  of  arithmetic  as  it  is  of  poetry  that  in  some 
place  and  at  some  time  it  ought  to  be  a  good  to  be  appreciated 
on  its  own  account  —  just  as  an  enjoyable  experience,  in 
short.  If  it  is  not,  then  when  the  time  and  place  come  for 
it  to  be  used  as  a  means  or  instrumentahty,  it  will  be  in  just 
that  much  handicapped.  Never  having  been  realized  or 
appreciated  for  itself,  one  will  miss  something  of  its  capacity 
as  a  resource  for  other  ends. 

It  equally  follows  that  when  we  compare  studies  as  to  their 
values,  that  is,  treat  them  as  means  to  something  beyond 
themselves,  that  which  controls  their  proper  valuation  is 
found  in  the  specific  situation  in  which  they  are  to  be  used. 
The  way  to  enable  a  student  to  apprehend  the  instrumental 
value  of  arithmetic  is  not  to  lecture  him  upon  the  benefit  it 
will  be  to  him  in  some  remote  and  uncertain  future,  but  to 
let  him  discover  that  success  in  something  he  is  interested 
in  doing  depends  upon  abiUty  to  use  number. 

It  also  follows  that  the  attempt  to  distribute  distinct  sorts 
of  value  among  different  studies  is  a  misguided  one,  in  spite 
of  the  amount  of  time  recently  devoted  to  the  undertaking. 


282  Philosophy  of  Education 

Science  for  example  may  have  any  kixid  of  value,  depending 
upon  the  situation  into  which  it  enters  as  a  means.  To  some 
the  value  of  science  may  be  military ;  it  may  be  an  instrument 
in  strengthening  means  of  offense  or  defense;  it  may  be 
technological,  a  tool  for  engineering ;  or  it  may  be  commercial 
—  an  aid  in  the  successful  conduct  of  business ;  under  othei 
conditions,  its  worth  may  be  philanthropic  —  the  service  it 
renders  in  relieving  human  suffering ;  or  again  it  may  be  quite 
conventional  —  of  value  in  establishing  one's  social  status  as 
an  *  educated  '  person.  As  matter  of  fact,  science  serves  all 
these  purposes,  and  it  would  be  an  arbitrary  task  to  try  to 
fix  upon  one  of  them  as  its  '  real '  end.  All  that  we  can  be 
sure  of  educationally  is  that  science  should  be  taught  so  as  to 
be  an  end  in  itself  in  the  lives  of  students  —  something  worth 
while  on  account  of  its  own  unique  intrinsic  contribution  to 
the  experience  of  life.  Primarily  it  must  have  *  appreciation 
value,'  If  we  take  something  which  seems  to  be  at  the 
opposite  pole,  like  poetry,  the  same  sort  of  statement  applies. 
It  may  be  that,  at  the  present  time,  its  chief  value  is  the 
contribution  it  makes  to  the  enjoyment  of  leisure.  But  that 
may  represent  a  degenerate  condition  rather  than  anything 
necessary.  Poetry  has  historically  been  allied  with  religion 
and  morals;  it  has  served  the  purpose  of  penetrating  the 
mysterious  depths  of  things.  It  has  had  an  enormous  patri- 
otic value.  Homer  to  the  Greeks  was  a  Bible,  a  textbook 
of  morals,  a  history,  and  a  national  inspiration.  In  any  case, 
it  may  be  said  that  an  education  which  does  not  succeed  in 
making  poetry  a  resource  in  the  business  of  life  as  well  as  in 
its  leisure,  has  something  the  matter  with  it — or  else  the 
poetry  is  artificial  poetry. 

The  same  considerations  apply  to  the  value  of  a  study  or 
a  topic  of  a  study  with  reference  to  its  motivating  force. 
Those  responsible  for  planning  and  teaching  the  course  of 
study  should  have  grounds  for  thinking  that  the  studies 
and  topics  included  furnish  both  direct  increments  to  the 


Educational  Values  !Z»3 

enriching  of  lives  of  the  pupils  and  also  materials  which  they 
can  put  to  use  in  other  concerns  of  direct  interest.  Since 
the  curriculum  is  always  getting  loaded  down  with  purely 
inherited  traditional  matter  and  with  subjects  which  repre- 
sent mainly  the  energy  of  some  influential  person  or  group  of 
persons  in  behalf  of  something  dear  to  them,  it  requires  con- 
stant inspection,  criticism,  and  revision  to  make  sure  it  is 
accomplishing  its  purpose.  Then  there  is  always  the  prob- 
abihty  that  it  represents  the  values  of  adults  rather  than  those 
of  children  and  youth,  or  those  of  pupils  a  generation  ago 
rather  than  those  of  the  present  day.  Hence  a  further  need 
for  a  critical  outlook  and  survey.  But  these  considerations 
do  not  mean  that  for  a  subject  to  have  motivating  value 
to  a  pupil  (whether  intrinsic  or  instrumental)  is  the  same 
thing  as  for  him  to  be  aware  of  the  value,  or  to  be  able  to  tell 
what  the  study  is  good  for. 

In  the  first  place,  as  long  as  any  topic  makes  an  immediate 
appeal,  it  is  not  necessary  to  ask  what  it  is  good  for.  This  ii 
a  question  which  can  be  asked  only  about  instrumental 
values.  Some  goods  are  not  good  for  anything;  they  are 
just  goods.  Any  other  notion  leads  to  an  absurdity.  For 
we  cannot  stop  asking  the  question  about  an  instrumental 
good,  one  whose  value  lies  in  its  being  good  for  something, 
unless  there  is  at  some  point  something  intrinsically  good, 
good  for  itself.  To  a  hungry,  healthy  child,  food  is  a  good  of 
the  situation ;  we  do  not  have  to  bring  him  to  consciousness  of 
the  ends  subserved  by  food  in  order  to  supply  a  motive  to 
eat.  The  food  in  connection  with  his  appetite  is  a  motive. 
The  same  thing  holds  of  mentally  eager  pupils  with  respect 
to  many  topics.  Neither  they  nor  the  teacher  could  possibly 
foretell  with  any  exactness  the  purposes  learning  is  to  ac- 
complish in  the  future ;  nor  as  long  as  the  eagerness  continues 
is  it  advisable  to  try  to  specify  particular  goods  which  are  to 
come  of  it.  The  proof  of  a  good  is  found  in  the  fact  that  the 
pupil  responds;    his   response  is  use.    His  response  to  the 


284  Philosophy  of  Education 

material  shows  that  the  subject  functions  in  his  life.  It  ia 
unsound  to  urge  that,  say,  Latin  has  a  value  per  se  in  the 
abstract,  just  as  a  study,  as  a  sufficient  justification  for  teach- 
ing it.  But  it  is  equally  absurd  to  argue  that  unless  teacher 
or  pupil  can  point  out  some  definite  assignable  future  use  to 
which  it  is  to  be  put,  it  lacks  justifying  value.  When  pupils 
are  genuinely  concerned  in  learning  Latin,  that  is  of  itself 
proof  that  it  possesses  value.  The  most  which  one  is  entitled 
to  ask  in  such  cases  is  whether  in  view  of  the  shortness  of 
time,  there  are  not  other  things  of  intrinsic  value  which  in 
addition  have  greater  instrumental  value. 

This  brings  us  to  the  matter  of  instrumental  values  —  topics 
studied  because  of  some  end  beyond  themselves.  If  a  child 
is  ill  and  his  appetite  does  not  lead  him  to  eat  when  food  is 
presented,  or  if  his  appetite  is  perverted  so  that  he  prefers 
candy  to  meat  and  vegetables,  conscious  reference  to  results 
is  indicated.  He  needs  to  be  made  conscious  of  consequences 
as  a  justification  of  the  positive  or  negative  value  of  certain 
objects.  Or  the  state  of  things  may  be  normal  enough,  and 
yet  an  individual  not  be  moved  by  some  matter  because  he 
does  not  grasp  how  his  attainment  of  some  intrinsic  good 
depend  upon  active  concern  with  what  is  presented.  In  such 
cases,  it  is  obviously  the  part  of  wisdom  to  establish  con- 
sciousness of  connection.  In  general  what  is  desirable  is  that 
a  topic  be  presented  in  such  a  way  that  it  either  have  an 
immediate  value,  and  require  no  justification,  or  else  be 
perceived  to  be  a  means  of  achieving  something  of  intrinsic 
value.  An  instrumental  value  then  has  the  intrinsic  value 
of  being  a  means  to  an  end. 

It  may  be  questioned  whether  some  of  the  present  peda- 
gogical interest  in  the  matter  of  values  of  studies  is  not  either 
excessive  or  else  too  narrow.  Sometimes  it  appears  to  be  a 
labored  effort  to  furnish  an  apologetic  for  topics  which  no 
bnger  operate  to  any  purpose,  direct  or  indirect,  in  the  lives 
of  pupils.    At  other  times,  the  reaction  against  useless  lumber 


Educational  Values  285 

seems  to  have  gone  to  the  extent  of  supposing  that  no  subject 
or  topic  should  be  taught  unless  some  quite  definite  future 
utiHty  can  be  pointed  out  by  those  making  the  course  of 
study  or  by  the  pupil  himself,  unmindful  of  the  fact  that  life  is 
its  own  excuse  for  being ;  and  that  definite  utiHties  which  can 
be  pointed  out  are  themselves  justified  only  because  they 
increase  the  experienced  content  of  life  itself. 

3.  The  Segregation  and  Organization  of  Values.  —  It  is 
of  course  possible  to  classify  in  a  general  way  the  various 
valuable  phases  of  life.  In  order  to  get  a  survey  of  aims  suf- 
ficiently wide  (See  ante,  p.  1 28)  to  give  breadth  and  flexibility 
to  the  enterprise  of  education,  there  is  some  advantage  in 
such  a  classification.  But  it  is  a  great  mistake  to  regard 
these  values  as  ultimate  ends  to  which  the  concrete  satis- 
factions of  experience  are  subordinate.  They  are  nothing  but 
generalizations,  more  or  less  adequate,  of  concrete  goods. 
Health,  wealth,  efficiency,  sociabihty,  utility,  culture,  hap- 
piness itself  are  only  abstract  terms  which  simi  up  a  multi- 
tude of  particulars.  To  regard  such  things  as  standards  for 
the  valuation  of  concrete  topics  and  process  of  education  is  to 
subordinate  to  an  abstraction  the  concrete  facts  from  which  the 
abstraction  is  derived.  They  are  not  in  any  true  sense 
standards  of  valuation ;  these  are  found,  as  we  have  previously 
seen,  in  the  specific  realizations  which  form  tastes  and  habits 
of  preference.  They  are,  however,  of  significance  as  points 
of  view  elevated  above  the  details  of  life  whence  to  survey 
the  field  and  see  how  its  constituent  details  are  distributed, 
and  whether  they  are  well  proportioned. 

No  classification  can  have  other  than  a  provisional  validity. 
The  following  may  prove  of  some  help.  We  may  say  that 
the  kind  of  experience  to  which  the  work  of  the  schools  should 
contribute  is  one  marked  by  executive  competency  in  thf 
management  of  resources  and  obstacles  encountered  (effi- 
ciency) ;  by  sociability,  or  interest  in  the  direct  companionship 
of  others ;  by  aesthetic  taste  or  capacity  to  appreciate  artistic 


286  Philosophy  of  Education 

excellence  in  at  least  some  of  its  classic  forms ;  by  trained 
intellectual  method,  or  interest  in  some  mode  of  scientific 
achievement ;  and  by  sensitiveness  to  the  rights  and  claims 
of  others — ^conscientiousness.  And  while  these  considerations 
are  not  standards  of  value,  they  are  useful  criteria  for  sur- 
vey, criticism,  and  better  organization  of  existing  methods 
and  subject  matter  of  instruction. 

The  need  of  such  general  points  of  view  is  the  greater 
because  of  a  tendency  to  segregate  educational  values  due 
to  the  isolation  from  one  another  of  the  various  pursuits  of 
life.  The  idea  is  prevalent  that  different  studies  represent 
separate  kinds  of  values,  and  that  the  curriculum  should,  there- 
fore, be  constituted  by  gathering  together  various  studies  till 
a  sufficient  variety  of  independent  values  have  been  cared 
for.  The  following  quotation  does  not  use  the  word  value, 
but  it  contains  the  notion  of  a  curriculum  constructed  on  the 
idea  that  there  are  a  number  of  separate  ends  to  be  reached, 
and  that  various  studies  may  be  evaluated  by  referring  each 
study  to  its  respective  end.  "  Memory  is  trained  by  most 
studies,  but  best  by  languages  and  history;  taste  is  trained 
by  the  more  advanced  study  of  languages,  and  still  better  by 
English  hterature;  imagination  by  all  higher  language 
teaching,  but  chiefly  by  Greek  and  Latin  poetry;  obser- 
vation by  science  work  in  the  laboratory,  though  some  train- 
ing is  to  be  got  from  the  earlier  stages  of  Latin  and  Greek ;  for 
expression,  Greek  and  Latin  composition  come  first  and 
English  composition  next;  for  abstract  reasoning,  mathe- 
matics stands  almost  alone;  for  concrete  reasoning,  science 
comes  first,  then  geometry;  for  social  reasoning,  the  Greek 
and  Roman  historians  and  orators  come  first,  and  general 
history  next.  Hence  the  narrowest  education  which  can  claim 
to  be  at  all  complete  includes  Latin,  one  modern  language, 
some  history,  some  EngHsh  literature,  and  one  science." 

There  is  much  in  the  wording  of  this  passage  which  is 
irrelevant  to  our  point  and  which  must  be  discounted  to  make 


Educational  Values  287 

it  clear.  The  phraseology  betrays  the  particular  provincial 
tradition  within  which  the  author  is  writing.  There  is  the 
unquestioned  assumption  of  "  faculties  "  to  be  trained,  and 
a  dominant  interest  in  the  ancient  languages ;  there  is  com- 
parative disregard  of  the  earth  on  which  men  happen  to  live 
and  the  bodies  they  happen  to  carry  around  with  them.  But 
with  allowances  made  for  these  matters  (even  with  their 
complete  abandonment)  we  find  much  in  contemporary 
educational  philosophy  which  parallels  the  fundamental 
notion  of  parcehng  out  special  values  to  segregated  studies. 
Even  when  some  one  end  i:^  set  up  as  a  standard  of  value, 
like  social  efficiency  or  culture,  it  will  often  be  found  to  be 
but  a  verbal  heading  under  which  a  variety  of  disconnected 
factors  are  comprised.  And  although  the  general  tendency 
is  to  allow  a  greater  variety  of  values  to  a  given  study  than 
does  the  passage  quoted,  yet  the  attempt  to  inventory  a 
number  of  values  attaching  to  each  study  and  to  state  the 
amount  of  each  value  which  the  given  study  possesses  em- 
phasizes an  imphed  educational  disintegration. 

As  matter  of  fact,  such  schemes  of  values  of  studies  are 
largely  but  unconscious  justifications  of  the  curriculum  with 
which  one  is  familiar.  One  accepts,  for  the  most  part,  the 
studies  of  the  existing  course  and  then  assigns  values  to  them 
as  a  sufficient  reason  for  their  being  taught.  Mathematics 
is  said  to  have,  for  example,  discipUnary  value  in  habituating 
the  pupil  to  accuracy  of  statement  and  closeness  of  reason- 
ing ;  it  has  utiUtarian  value  in  giving  command  of  the  arts  of 
calculation  involved  in  trade  and  the  arts;  culture  value  in 
its  enlargement  of  the  imagination  in  deaHng  with  the  most 
general  relations  of  things;  even  religious  value  in  its  con- 
cept of  the  infinite  and  allied  ideas.  But  clearly  mathematics 
does  not  accomphsh  such  results,  because  it  is  endowed  with 
miraculous  potencies  called  values;  it  has  these  values  if 
and  when  it  accomplishes  these  results,  and  not  otherwise. 
The  statements  may  help  a  teacher  to  a  larger  vision  of  the 


288  Philosophy  of  Education 

possible  results  to  be  effected  by  instruction  in  mathematical 
topics.  But  unfortunately,  the  tendency  is  to  treat  the 
statement  as  indicating  powers  inherently  residing  in  the 
subject,  whether  they  operate  or  not,  and  thus  to  give  it  a 
rigid  justification.  If  they  do  not  operate,  the  blame  is  put 
not  on  the  subject  as  taught,  but  on  the  indifference  and 
recalcitrancy  of  pupils. 

This  attitude  toward  subjects  is  the  obverse  side  of  the 
conception  of  experience  or  Hfe  as  a  patchwork  of  independent 
interests  which  exist  side  by  side  and  limit  one  another. 
Students  of  politics  are  famihar  with  a  check  and  balance 
theory  of  the  powers  of  government.  There  are  supposed  to 
be  independent  separate  functions,  like  the  legislative,  ex- 
ecutive, judicial,  administrative,  and  all  goes  well  if  each  of 
these  checks  all  the  others  and  thus  creates  an  ideal  balance. 
There  is  a  philosophy  which  might  well  be  called  the  check 
and  balance  theory  of  experience.  Life  presents  a  diversity 
of  interests.  Left  to  themselves,  they  tend  to  encroach  on 
one  another.  The  ideal  is  to  prescribe  a  special  territory  for 
each  till  the  whole  ground  of  experience  is  covered,  and  then 
see  to  it  each  remains  within  its  own  boundaries.  Politics, 
business,  recreation,  art,  science,  the  learned  professions, 
polite  intercourse,  leisure,  represent  such  interests.  Each 
of  these  ramifies  into  many  branches :  business  into  manual 
occupations,  executive  positions,  bookkeeping,  railroading, 
banking,  agriculture,  trade  and  commerce,  etc.,  and  so  with 
each  of  the  others.  An  ideal  education  would  then  supply 
the  means  of  meeting  these  separate  and  pigeon-holed  inter- 
ests. And  when  we  look  at  the  schools,  it  is  easy  to  get  the 
impression  that  they  accept  this  view  of  the  nature  of  adult 
life,  and  set  for  themselves  the  task  of  meeting  its  demands. 
Each  interest  is  acknowledged  as  a  kind  of  fixed  institution 
to  which  something  in  the  course  of  study  must  correspond. 
The  course  of  study  must  then  have  some  civics  and  history 
politically  and  patriotically  viewed :   some  utilitarian  studies  ^ 


Educational  Values  28y 

some  science ;  some  art  (mainly  literature  of  course) ,  some 
provision  for  recreation ;  some  moral  education ;  and  so  on. 
And  it  will  be  found  that  a  large  part  of  current  agitation 
about  schools  is  concerned  with  clamor  and  controversy  about 
the  due  meed  of  recognition  to  be  given  to  each  of  these  in- 
terests, and  with  struggles  to  secure  for  each  its  due  share  in 
the  course  of  study ;  or,  if  this  does  not  seem  feasible  in  the 
existing  school  system,  then  to  secure  a  new  and  separate 
kind  of  schooling  to  meet  the  need.  In  the  multitude  of 
educations  education  is  forgotten. 

The  obvious  outcome  is  congestion  of  the  course  of  study, 
over-pressure  and  distraction  of  pupils,  and  a  narrow  speciali- 
zation fatal  to  the  very  idea  of  education.  But  these  bad 
results  usually  lead  to  more  of  the  same  sort  of  thing  as  a 
remedy.  When  it  is  perceived  that  after  all  the  requirements 
of  a  full  Ufe  experience  are  not  met,  the  deficiency  is  not  laid 
to  the  isolation  and  narrowness  of  the  teaching  of  the  existing 
subjects,  and  this  recognition  made  the  basis  of  reorganization 
of  the  system.  No,  the  lack  is  something  to  be  made  up  for 
by  the  introduction  of  still  another  study,  or,  if  necessary, 
another  kind  of  school.  And  as  a  rule  those  who  object  to 
the  resulting  overcrowding  and  consequent  superficiahty  and 
distraction,  usually  also  have  recourse  to  a  merely  quantitative 
criterion :  the  remedy  is  to  cut  off  a  great  many  studies  as 
fads  and  frills,  and  return  to  the  good  old  curriculum  of  the 
three  R's  in  elementary  education  and  the  equally  good  and 
equally  old-fashioned  curriculum  of  the  classics  and  mathe- 
matics in  higher  education. 

The  situation  has,  of  course,  its  historic  explanation. 
Various  epochs  of  the  past  have  had  their  own  characteristic 
struggles  and  interests.  Each  of  these  great  epochs  has  left 
behind  itself  a  kind  of  cultural  deposit,  like  a  geologic  stratum. 
These  deposits  have  found  their  way  into  educational  insti- 
tutions in  the  form  of  studies,  distinct  courses  of  study,  dis- 
tinct types  of  schools.     With  the  rapid  change  of  poUticaJ^ 


290  Philosophy  of  Education 

scientific,  and  economic  interests  in  the  last  century,  provision 
had  to  be  made  for  new  values.  Though  the  older  courses 
resisted,  they  have  had  at  least  in  this  country  to  retire  their 
pretensions  to  a  monopoly.  They  have  not,  however,  been 
reorganized  in  content  and  aim ;  they  have  only  been  reduced 
in  amount.  The  new  studies,  representing  the  new  interests, 
have  not  been  used  to  transform  the  method  and  aim  of  all 
instruction;  they  have  been  injected  and  added  on.  The 
result  is  a  conglomerate,  the  cement  of  which  consists  in  the 
mechanics  of  the  school  program  or  time  table.  Thence 
arises  the  scheme  of  values  and  standards  of  value  which  we 
have  mentioned. 

This  situation  in  education  represents  the  divisions  and 
separations  which  obtain  in  social  Hfe.  The  variety  of  in- 
terests which  should  mark  any  rich  and  balanced  experience 
have  been  torn  asunder  and  deposited  in  separate  institutions 
with  diverse  and  independent  purposes  and  methods.  Bus- 
iness is  business,  science  is  science,  art  is  art,  poHtics  is  politics, 
social  intercourse  is  social  intercourse,  morals  is  morals,  recre- 
ation is  recreation,  and  so  on.  Each  possesses  a  separate  and 
independent  province  with  its  own  pecuHar  aims  and  ways  of 
proceeding.  Each  contributes  to  the  others  only  externally 
and  accidentally.  All  of  them  together  make  up  the  whole  of 
life  by  just  apposition  and  addition.  What  does  one  expect 
from  business  save  that  it  should  furnish  money,  to  be  used 
in  turn  for  making  more  money  and  for  support  of  self  and 
family,  for  buying  books  and  pictures,  tickets  to  concerts 
which  may  afford  culture,  and  for  paying  taxes,  charitable 
gifts  and  other  things  of  social  and  ethical  value?  How 
unreasonable  to  expect  that  the  pursuit  of  business  should  be 
itself  a  culture  of  the  imagination,  in  breadth  and  refinement ; 
that  it  should  directly,  and  not  through  the  money  which  it 
supplies,  have  social  service  for  its  animating  principle  and 
be  conducted  as  an  enterprise  in  behalf  of  social  organization  ! 
The  same  thing  is  to  be  said,  mutatis  mutandis,  of  the  pursuit 


Educational  Values  291 

of  art  or  science  or  politics  or  religion.  Each  has  become 
specialized  not  merely  in  its  appliances  and  its  demands  upon 
time,  but  in  its  aim  and  animating  spirit.  Unconsciously, 
our  course  of  studies  and  our  theories  of  the  educational 
values  of  studies  reflect  this  division  of  interests. 

The  point  at  issue  in  a  theory  of  educational  value  is  then 
the  unity  or  integrity  of  experience.  How  shall  it  be  full  and 
varied  without  losing  unity  of  spirit?  How  shall  it  be  one 
and  yet  not  narrow  and  monotonous  in  its  unity  ?  Ultimately, 
the  question  of  values  and  a  standard  of  values  is  the  moral 
question  of  the  organization  of  the  interests  of  life.  Edu- 
cationally, the  question  concerns  that  organization  of  schools, 
materials,  and  methods  which  will  operate  to  achieve  breadth 
and  richness  of  experience.  How  shall  we  secure  breadth 
of  outlook  without  sacrificing  efl&ciency  of  execution?  How 
shall  we  secure  the  diversity  of  interests,  without  paying  the 
price  of  isolation?  How  shall  the  individual  be  rendered 
executive  in  his  intelligence  instead  of  at  the  cost  of  his 
intelhgence?  How  shall  art,  science,  and  politics  reenforce 
one  another  in  an  enriched  temper  of  mind  instead  of  consti- 
tuting ends  pursued  at  one  another's  expense  ?  How  can  the 
interests  of  life  and  the  studies  which  enforce  them  enrich 
the  common  experience  of  men  instead  of  dividing  men  from 
one  another?  With  the  questions  of  reorganization  thus 
suggested,  we  shall  be  concerned  in  the  concluding  chapters. 

Summary.  —  Fundamentally,  the  elements  involved  in  a 
discussion  of  value  have  been  covered  in  the  prior  discussion 
of  aims  and  interests.  But  since  educational  values  are 
generally  discussed  in  connection  with  the  claims  of  the 
various  studies  of  the  curriculum,  the  consideration  of  aim 
and  interest  is  here  resumed  from  the  point  of  view  of 
special  studies.  The  term  "value"  has  two  quite  different 
meanings.  On  the  one  hand,  it  denotes  the  attitude  of  priz- 
ing a  thing,  finding  it  worth  while,  for  its  own  sake,  or  in- 
trinsically.    This  is  a  name  for  a  full  or  complete  experience- 


292  Philosophy  oj  Education 

To  value  in  this  sense  is  to  appreciate.  But  to  value  also 
means  a  distinctively  intellectual  act  —  an  operation  of  com- 
paring and  judging  —  to  valuate.  This  occurs  when  direct 
full  experience  is  lacking,  and  the  question  arises  which  of 
the  various  possibilities  of  a  situation  is  to  be  preferred  in 
order  to  reach  a  full  realization,  or  vital  experience. 

We  must  not,  however,  divide  the  studies  of  the  curriculum 
into  the  appreciative,  those  concerned  with  intrinsic  value, 
and  the  instrumental,  concerned  with  those  which  are  of  value 
or  ends  beyond  themselves.  The  formation  of  proper  stand- 
ards in  any  subject  depends  upon  a  realization  of  the  con- 
tribution which  it  makes  to  the  immediate  significance  of 
experience,  upon  a  direct  appreciation.  Literature  and  the 
fine  arts  are  of  peculiar  value  because  they  represent  appre- 
ciation at  its  best  —  a  heightened  realization  of  meaning 
through  selection  and  concentration.  But  every  subject 
at  some  phase  of  its  development  should  possess,  what  is  for 
the  individual  concerned  with  it,  an  aesthetic  quality. 

Contribution  to  immediate  intrinsic  values  in  all  their 
variety  in  experience  is  the  only  criterion  for  determining  the 
worth  of  instrumental  and  derived  values  in  studies.  The 
tendency  to  assign  separate  values  to  each  study  and  to 
regard  the  curriculum  in  its  entirety  as  a  kind  of  composite 
made  by  the  aggregation  of  segregated  values  is  a  result  of 
the  isolation  of  social  groups  and  classes.  Hence  it  is  the 
business  of  education  in  a  democratic  social  group  to  struggle 
against  this  isolation  in  order  that  the  various  interests  may 
reenforce  and  play  into  one  another. 


CHAPTER  XIX 
Labor  and  Leisure 

1.  The  Origin  of  the  Opposition.  —  The  isolation  of 
aims  and  values  which  we  have  been  considering  leads  to 
opposition  between  them.  Probably  the  most  deep-seated 
antithesis  which  has  shown  itself  in  educational  history  is 
that  between  education  in  preparation  for  useful  labor  and 
education  for  a  life  of  leisure.  The  bare  terms  '  useful 
labor '  and  '  leisure  '  confirm  the  statement  already  made  that 
the  segregation  and  conflict  of  values  are  not  self-inclosed, 
but  reflect  a  division  within  social  hfe.  Were  the  two 
functions  of  gaining  a  hvelihood  by  work  and  enjoying  in 
a  cultivated  way  the  opportunities  of  leisure,  distributed 
equally  among  the  different  members  of  a  community,  it 
would  not  occur  to  any  one  that  there  was  any  conflict  of 
educational  agencies  and  aims  involved.  It  would  be  self- 
evident  that  the  question  was  how  education  could  contribute 
most  effectively  to  both.  And  while  it  might  be  found  that 
some  materials  of  instruction  chiefly  accomplished  one  result 
and  other  subject  matter  the  other,  it  would  be  evident  that 
care  must  be  taken  to  secure  as  much  overlapping  as  conditions 
permit ;  that  is,  the  education  which  had  leisure  more  directly 
in  view  should  indirectly  reenforce  as  much  as  possible  the 
efficiency  and  the  enjoyment  of  work,  while  that  aiming  at 
the  latter  should  produce  habits  of  emotion  and  intellect 
which  would  procure  a  worthy  cultivation  of  leisure. 

These  general  considerations  are  amply  borne  out  by  the 
historical  development  of  educational  philosophy.  The  sepa- 
ration of  hberal  education  from  professional  and  industrial 
education  goes  back  to  the  time  of  the  Greeks,  and  was  formu' 


294  Philosophy  of  Education 

lated  expressly  on  the  basis  of  a  division  of  classes  into  those 
who  had  to  labor  for  a  living  and  those  who  were  reheved  from 
this  necessity.  The  conception  that  liberal  education,  adapted 
to  men  in  the  latter  class,  is  intrinsically  higher  than  the  ser- 
vile training  given  to  the  latter  class  reflected  the  fact  that  one 
class  was  free  and  the  other  servile  in  its  social  status.  The 
latter  class  labored  not  only  for  its  own  subsistence,  but  also 
for  the  means  which  enabled  the  superior  class  to  live  with- 
out personally  engaging  in  occupations  taking  almost  all  the 
time  and  not  of  a  nature  to  engage  or  reward  intelligence. 

That  a  certain  amount  of  labor  must  be  engaged  in  goes 
tvithout  saying.  Human  beings  have  to  live  and  it  requires 
work  to  supply  the  resources  of  life.  Even  if  we  insist 
that  the  interests  connected  with  getting  a  living  are  only 
material  and  hence  intrinsically  lower  than  those  connected 
with  enjoyment  of  time  released  from  labor,  and  even  if  it 
were  admitted  that  there  is  something  engrossing  and  in- 
subordinate in  material  interests  which  leads  them  to  strive 
to  usurp  the  place  belonging  to  the  higher  ideal  interests, 
this  would  not  —  barring  the  fact  of  socially  divided  classes  — 
lead  to  neglect  of  the  kind  of  education  which  trains  men  for  the 
useful  pursuits.  It  would  rather  lead  to  scrupulous  care  for 
them,  so  that  men  were  trained  to  be  efficient  in  them  and 
yet  to  keep  them  in  their  place ;  education  would  see  to  it 
that  we  avoided  the  evil  results  which  flow  from  their  being 
allowed  to  flourish  in  obscure  purUeus  of  neglect.  Only 
when  a  division  of  these  interests  coincides  with  a  division 
of  an  inferior  and  a  superior  social  class  will  preparation  for 
useful  work  be  looked  down  upon  with  contempt  as  an  un- 
worthy thing :  a  fact  which  prepares  one  for  the  conclusion 
that  the  rigid  identification  of  work  with  material  interests, 
and  leisure  with  ideal  interests  is  itself  a  social  product. 

The  educational  formulations  of  the  social  situation  made 
over  two  thousand  years  ago  have  been  so  influential  and 
give  such  a  clear  and  logical  recognition  of  the  implications 


Labor  and  Leisure  295 

of  the  division  into  laboring  and  leisure  classes,  that  they 
deserve  especial  note.  According  to  them,  man  occupies  the 
highest  place  in  the  scheme  of  animate  existence.  In  part, 
he  shares  the  constitution  and  functions  of  plants  and  animals 
—  nutritive,  reproductive,  motor  or  practical.  The  distinc- 
tively human  function  is  reason  existing  for  the  sake  of  be- 
holding the  spectacle  of  the  universe.  Hence  the  truly 
human  end  is  the  fullest  possible  of  this  distinctive  human 
prerogative.  The  life  of  observation,  meditation,  cogitation, 
and  speculation  pursued  as  an  end  in  itself  is  the  proper  life 
of  man.  From  reason  moreover  proceeds  the  proper  control 
of  the  lower  elements  of  human  nature  —  the  appetites  and 
the  active,  motor,  impulses.  In  themselves  greedy,  insubor- 
dinate, lovers  of  excess,  aiming  only  at  their  own  satiety,  they 
observe  moderation  —  the  law  of  the  mean  —  and  serve 
desirable  ends  as  they  are  subjected  to  the  rule  of  reason. 

Such  is  the  situation  as  an  affair  of  theoretical  psychology 
and  as  most  adequately  stated  by  Aristotle.  But  this  state 
of  things  is  reflected  in  the  constitution  of  classes  of  men 
and  hence  in  the  organization  of  society.  Only  in  a  com- 
paratively small  number  is  the  function  of  reason  capable 
of  operating  as  a  law  of  Hfe.  In  the  mass  of  people,  vegeta- 
tive and  animal  functions  dominate.  Their  energy  of  in- 
telligence is  so  feeble  and  inconstant  that  it  is  constantly 
overpowered  by  bodily  appetite  and  passion.  Such  persons 
are  not  truly  ends  in  themselves,  for  only  reason  constitutes 
a  final  end.  Like  plants,  animals  and  physical  tools,  they 
are  means,  appliances,  for  the  attaining  of  ends  beyond  them- 
selves, although  unlike  them  they  have  enough  intelhgence 
to  exercise  a  certain  discretion  in  the  execution  of  the  tasks 
committed  to  them.  Thus  by  nature,  and  not  merely  by 
social  convention,  there  are  those  who  are  slaves  —  that  is, 
means  for  the  ends  of  others.^    The  great  body  of  artisans 

'  Aristotle  does  not  hold  that  the  class  of  actual  slaves  and  of  natural  slaves 
necessarily  coincide 


296  Philosophy  of  Education 

are  in  one  important  respect  worse  off  than  even  slaves.  Like 
the  latter  they  are  given  up  to  the  service  of  ends  external  to 
themselves ;  but  since  they  do  not  enjoy  the  intimate  associa- 
tion with  the  free  superior  class  experienced  by  domestic  slaves 
they  remain  on  a  lower  plane  of  excellence.  Moreover, 
women  are  classed  with  slaves  and  craftsmen  as  factors  among 
the  animate  instrumentalities  of  production  and  reproduction 
of  the  means  for  a  free  or  rational  life. 

Individually  and  collectively  there  is  a  gulf  between  merely 
living  and  living  worthily.  In  order  that  one  may  live 
worthily  he  must  first  Hve,  and  so  with  collective  society. 
The  time  and  energy  spent  upon  mere  life,  upon  the  gaining 
of  subsistence,  detracts  from  that  available  for  activities  that 
have  an  inherent  rational  meaning;  they  also  unfit  for  the 
latter.  Means  are  menial,  the  serviceable  is  servile.  The 
true  Hfe  is  possible  only  in  the  degree  in  which  the  physical 
necessities  are  had  without  effort  and  without  attention. 
Hence  slaves,  artisans,  and  women  are  employed  in  furnishing 
the  means  of  subsistence  in  order  that  others,  those  adequately 
equipped  with  intelligence,  may  live  the  life  of  leisurely 
concern  with  things  intrinsically  worth  while. 

To  these  two  modes  of  occupation,  with  their  distinction 
of  servile  and  free  activities  (or  ''  arts  ")  correspond  two  tj'pes 
of  education :  the  base  or  mechanical  and  the  liberal  or 
intellectual.  Some  persons  are  trained  by  suitable  practical 
exercises  for  capacity  in  doing  things,  for  ability  to  use  the 
mechanical  tools  involved  in  turning  out  physical  commodities 
and  rendering  personal  service.  This  training  is  a  mere 
matter  of  habituation  and  technical  skill ;  it  operates  through 
repetition  and  assiduity  in  application,  not  through  awaken- 
ing and  nurturing  thought.  Liberal  education  aims  to  train 
intelligence  for  its  proper  office :  to  know.  The  less  this 
knowledge  has  to  do  with  practical  affairs,  with  making  or 
producLQg,  the  more  adequately  it  engages  intelligence.  So 
consistently  does  Aristotle  draw  the  line  between  menial  and 


Labor  and  Leisure  297 

liberal  education  that  he  puts  what  are  now  called  the  "  fine  " 
arts,  music,  painting,  sculpture,  in  the  same  class  with  menial 
arts  so  far  as  their  practice  is  concerned.  They  involve 
physical  agencies,  assiduity  of  practice,  and  external  results. 
In  discussing,  for  example,  education  in  music  he  raises  the 
question  how  far  the  young  should  be  practiced  in  the  playing 
of  instruments.  His  answer  is  that  such  practice  and  pro- 
ficiency may  be  tolerated  as  conduce  to  appreciation ;  that  is, 
to  understanding  and  enjoyment  of  music  when  played  by 
slaves  or  professionals.  When  professional  power  is  aimed 
at,  music  sinks  from  the  liberal  to  the  professional  level. 
One  might  then  as  well  teach  cooking,  says  Aristotle.  Even 
a  Uberal  concern  with  the  works  of  fine  art  depends  upon  the 
existence  of  a  hireling  class  of  practitioners  who  have  subor- 
dinated the  development  of  their  own  personality  to  attain- 
ing skill  in  mechanical  execution.  The  higher  the  activity 
the  more  purely  mental  is  it ;  the  less  does  it  have  to  do  with 
physical  things  or  with  the  body.  The  more  purely  mental 
it  is,  the  more  independent  or  self-sufficing  is  it. 

These  last  words  remind  us  that  Aristotle  again  makes  a 
distinction  of  superior  and  inferior  even  within  those  Hving 
the  life  of  reason.  For  there  is  a  distinction  in  ends  and 
in  free  action,  according  as  one's  life  is  merely  accompanied  by 
reason  or  as  it  makes  reason  its  own  medium.  That  is  to  say, 
the  free  citizen  who  devotes  himself  to  the  public  life  of  his 
community,  sharing  in  the  management  of  its  affairs  and 
winning  personal  honor  and  distinction,  lives  a  life  accompanied 
by  reason.  But  the  thinker,  the  man  who  devotes  himself  to 
scientific  inquiry  and  philosophic  speculation,  works,  so  to 
speak,  in  reason,  not  simply  by  it.  Even  the  activity  of  the 
citizen  in  his  civic  relations,  in  other  words,  retains  some  of 
the  taint  of  practice,  of  external  or  merely  instrumental 
doing.  This  infection  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  civic  activity 
and  civic  excellence  need  the  help  of  others;  one  cannot 
engage  in  public  life  all  by  himself.     But  all  needs,  all  desires 


298  Philosophy  of  Education 

imply,  in  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle,  a  material  factor; 
they  involve  lack,  privation ;  they  are  dependent  upon  some- 
thing beyond  themselves  for  completion.  A  purely  intel- 
lectual life,  however,  one  carries  on  by  himself,  in  himseh-, 
such  assistance  as  he  may  derive  from  others  is  accidental, 
rather  then  intrinsic.  In  knowing,  in  the  life  of  theory, 
reason  finds  its  own  full  manifestation ;  knowing  for  the  sake 
of  knowing  irrespective  of  any  application  is  alone  independent, 
or  self-sufficing.  Hence  only  the  education  that  makes  for 
power  to  know  as  an  end  in  itself,  without  reference  to  the 
practice  of  even  civic  duties,  is  truly  liberal  or  free. 

2.  The  Present  Situation.  —  If  the  Aristotelian  concep- 
tion represented  just  Aristotle's  personal  view,  it  would  be  a 
more  or  less  interesting  historical  curiosity.  It  could  be 
dismissed  as  an  illustration  of  the  lack  of  sympathy  or  the 
amount  of  academic  pedantry  which  may  coexist  with  ex- 
traordinary intellectual  gifts.  But  Aristotle  simply  described 
without  confusion  and  without  that  insincerity  always  at- 
tendant upon  mental  confusion,  the  life  that  was  before  him. 
That  the  actual  social  situation  has  greatly  changed  since  his 
day  there  is  no  need  to  say.  But  in  spite  of  these  changes, 
in  .'pite  of  the  abolition  of  legal  serfdom,  and  the  spread  of 
democracy,  with  the  extension  of  science  and  of  general 
education  (in  books,  newspapers,  travel,  and  general  inter- 
ourse  as  well  as  in  schools),  there  remains  enough  of  a  cleavage 
o^  society  into  a  learned  and  an  unlearned  class,  a  leisure  and 
a  laboring  class,  to  make  his  point  of  view  a  most  enhghtening 
OQe  from  which  to  criticize  the  separation  between  culture 
and  utility  in  present  education.  Behind  the  intellectual 
and  abstract  distinction  as  it  figures  in  pedagogical  discussion, 
there  looms  a  social  distinction  between  those  whose  pursuits 
involve  a  minimum  of  self-directive  thought  and  aesthetic 
appreciation,  and  those  who  are  concerned  more  directly 
with  things  of  the  intelligence  and  with  the  control  of  the 
activities  of  others. 


Labor  and  Leisure  299 

Aristotle  was  certainly  permanently  right  when  he  said 
that  "  any  occupation  or  art  or  study  deserves  to  be  called 
mechanical  if  it  renders  the  body  or  soul  or  intellect  of  free 
persons  unfit  for  the  exercise  and  practice  of  excellence." 
The  force  of  the  statement  is  almost  infinitely  increased  when 
we  hold,  as  we  nominally  do  at  present,  that  all  persons, 
instead  of  a  comparatively  few,  are  free.  For  when  the  mass 
of  men  and  all  women  were  regarded  as  unfree  by  the  very 
nature  of  their  bodies  and  minds,  there  was  neither  intellectual 
confusion  nor  moral  hypocrisy  in  giving  them  only  the  train- 
ing which  fitted  them  for  mechanical  skill,  irrespective  of  its 
ulterior  effect  upon  their  capacity  to  share  in  a  worthy  Hfe. 
He  was  permanently  right  also  when  he  went  on  to  say  that 
''  all  mercenary  employments  as  well  as  those  which  degrade 
the  condition  of  the  body  are  mechanical,  since  they  deprive 
the  intellect  ^f  leisure  and  dignity," — permanently  right, 
that  is,  if  giiaful  pursaits  as  matter  of  fact  deprive  the 
intellect  of  the  conditions  of  its  exercise  and  so  of  its  dignity. 
If  his  statements  are  false,  it  is  because  they  identify  a  phase 
of  social  custom  with  a  natural  necessity.  But  a  different 
view  of  the  relations  of  mind  and  matter,  mind  and  body, 
intelligence  and  social  service,  is  better  than  Aristotle's  con- 
ception only  if  it  helps  render  the  old  idea  obsolete  in  fact  — 
in  the  actual  conduct  of  life  and  education. 

Aristotle  was  permanently  right  in  assuming  the  inferiority 
and  subordination  of  mere  skill  in  performance  and  mere 
accumulation  of  external  products  to  understanding,  S3mipa- 
thy  of  appreciation,  and  the  free  play  of  ideas.  If  there  was 
an  error,  it  lay  in  assuming  the  necessary  separation  of 
the  two :  in  supposing  that  there  is  a  natural  divorce  be- 
tween efl&ciency  in  producing  commodities  and  rendering 
service,  and  self-directive  thought;  between  significant 
knowledge  and  practical  achievement.  We  hardly  better 
matters  if  we  just  correct  his  theoretical  misapprehension, 
and  tolerate  the  social  state  of  affairs  which  generated  and 


300  Philosophy  of  Edtication 

sanctioned  his  conception.  We  lose  rather  than  gain  in 
change  from  serfdom  to  free  citizenship  if  the  most  prized 
result  of  the  change  is  simply  an  increase  in  the  mechanical 
efficiency  of  the  human  tools  of  production.  So  we  lose  rather 
than  gain  in  coming  to  think  of  intelligence  as  an  organ  of 
control  of  nature  through  action,  if  we  are  content  that  an  un- 
intelligent, unfree  state  persists  in  those  who  engage  directly 
in  turning  nature  to  use,  and  leave  the  intelligence  which 
controls  to  be  the  exclusive  possession  of  remote  scientists 
and  captains  of  industry.  We  are  in  a  position  honestly 
to  criticize  the  division  of  life  into  separate  functions  and 
of  society  into  separate  classes  only  so  far  as  we  are  free 
from  responsibiHty  for  perpetuating  the  educational  prac- 
tices which  train  the  many  for  pursuits  involving  mere  skill 
in  production,  and  the  few  for  a  knowledge  that  is  an  ornament 
and  a  cultural  embellishment.  In  short,  ability  to  transcend 
the  Greek  philosophy  of  life  and  education  is  not  secured  by 
a  mere  shifting  about  of  the  theoretical  symbols  meaning  free, 
rational,  and  worthy.  It  is  not  secured  by  a  change  of  senti- 
ment regarding  the  dignity  of  labor,  and  the  superiority  of 
a  life  of  service  to  that  of  an  aloof  self-sufficing  independence. 
Important  as  these  theoretical  and  emotional  changes  are, 
their  importance  consists  in  their  being  turned  to  account  in 
the  development  of  a  truly  democratic  society,  a  society  in 
which  all  share  in  useful  service  and  all  enjoy  a  worthy  leisure. 
It  is  not  a  mere  change  in  the  concepts  of  culture  —  or  a 
Hberal  mind  —  and  social  service  which  requires  an  educa- 
tional reorganization;  but  the  educational  transformation  ia 
needed  to  give  full  and  explicit  effect  to  the  changes  implied 
in  social  life.  The  increased  political  and  economic  emanci- 
pation of  the  "  masses  "  has  shown  itself  in  education ;  it 
has  effected  the  development  of  a  common  school  system  of 
education,  public  and  free.  It  has  destroyed  the  idea  that 
learning  is  properly  a  monopoly  of  the  few  who  are  predestined 
by  nature  to  govern  social  affairs.     But  the  revolution  is 


Labor  and  Leisure  301 

still  incomplete.  The  idea  still  prevails  that  a  truly  cultural 
or  liberal  education  cannot  have  anything  in  common,  directly 
at  least,  with  industrial  affairs,  and  that  the  education  which 
is  fit  for  the  masses  must  be  a  useful  or  practical  education 
in  a  sense  which  opposes  useful  and  practical  to  nurture  of 
appreciation  and  liberation  of  thought. 

As  a  consequence,  our  actual  system  is  an  inconsistent 
mixture.  Certain  studies  and  methods  are  retained  on  the 
supposition  that  they  have  the  sanction  of  peculiar  liberality, 
the  chief  content  of  the  term  Hberal  being  uselessness  for 
practical  ends.  This  aspect  is  chiefly  visible  in  what  is 
termed  the  higher  education  —  that  of  the  college  and  of 
preparation  for  it.  But  it  has  filtered  through  into  elementary 
education  and  largely  controls  its  processes  and  aims.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  certain  concessions  have  been  made  to 
the  masses  who  must  engage  in  getting  a  HveUhood  and  to 
the  increased  r61e  of  economic  activities  in  modem  life.  These 
concessions  are  exhibited  in  special  schools  and  courses  for  the 
professions,  for  engineering,  for  manual  training  and  commerce, 
in  vocational  and  prevocational  courses ;  and  in  the  spirit  in 
which  certain  elementary  subjects,  like  the  three  R's,  are 
taught.  The  result  is  a  system  in  which  both  "  cultural  "  and 
"  utilitarian  "  subjects  exist  in  an  inorganic  composite  where 
the  former  are  not  by  dominant  purpose  socially  serviceable 
and  the  latter  not  liberative  of  imagination  or  thinking  power. 

In  the  inherited  situation,  there  is  a  curious  intermingling,  in 
even  the  same  study,  of  concession  to  usefulness  and  a  survival 
of  traits  once  exclusively  attributed  to  preparation  for  leisure. 
The  *  utility  '  element  is  found  in  the  motives  assigned  for  the 
study,  the  *  liberal '  element  in  methods  of  teaching.  The  out- 
come of  the  mixture  is  perhaps  less  satisfactory  than  if  either 
principle  were  adhered  to  in  its  purity.  The  motive  popularly 
assigned  for  making  the  studies  of  the  first  four  or  five  years 
consist  almost  entirely  of  reading,  spelling,  writing,  and 
arithmetic,  is,  for  example,  that  ability  to  read,  write,  and  figure 


302  Philosophy  of  Education 

accurately  is  indispensable  to  getting  ahead.  These  studies 
are  treated  as  mere  instruments  for  entering  upon  a  gainful 
employment  or  of  later  progress  in  the  pursuit  of  learning, 
according  as  pupils  do  not  or  do  remain  in  school.  This 
attitude  is  reflected  in  the  emphasis  put  upon  drill  and  prac- 
tice for  the  sake  of  gaining  automatic  skill.  If  we  turn  to 
Greek  schooling,  we  find  that  from  the  earliest  years  the 
acquisition  of  skill  was  subordinated  as  much  as  possible  to 
acquisition  of  literary  content  possessed  of  aesthetic  and 
moral  significance.  Not  getting  a  tool  for  subsequent  use 
but  present  subject  matter  was  the  emphasized  thing.  Never- 
theless the  isolation  of  these  studies  from  practical  application, 
their  reduction  to  purely  symbolic  devices,  represents  a  sur- 
vival of  the  idea  of  a  liberal  training  divorced  from  utiUty. 
A  thorough  adoption  of  the  idea  of  utility  would  have  led  to 
instruction  which  tied  up  the  studies  to  situations  in  which 
they  were  directly  needed  and  where  they  were  rendered  im- 
mediately and  not  remotely  helpful.  It  would  be  hard  to 
find  a  subject  in  the  curriculum  within  which  there  are  not 
found  evil  results  of  a  compromise  between  the  two  opposed 
ideals.  Natural  science  is  recommended  on  the  ground  of 
its  practical  utility,  but  is  taught  as  a  special  accomplishment 
in  removal  from  application.  On  the  other  hand,  music  and 
literature  are  theoretically  justified  on  the  ground  of  their 
culture  value  and  are  then  taught  with  chief  emphasis  upon 
forming  technical  modes  of  skill. 

If  we  had  less  compromise  and  resulting  confusion,  if  we 
analyzed  more  carefully  the  respective  meanings  of  culture 
and  utility,  we  might  find  it  easier  to  construct  a  course  of 
study  which  should  be  useful  and  liberal  at  the  same  time. 
Only  superstition  makes  us  believe  that  the  two  are  necessarily 
hostile  so  that  a  subject  is  illiberal  because  it  is  useful  and 
cultural  because  it  is  useless.  It  will  generally  be  found  that 
instruction  which,  in  aiming  at  utiHtarian  results,  sacrifices 
the  developn?ent  of  imagination,  the  refining  of  taste  and  the 


Labor  and  Leisure  303 

deepening  of  intellectual  insight — surely  cultural  values — also 
in  the  same  degree  renders  what  is  learned  limited  in  its  use. 
Not  that  it  makes  it  wholly  unavailable  but  that  its  appli- 
cability is  restricted  to  routine  activities  carried  on  under  the 
supervision  of  others.  Narrow  modes  of  skill  cannot  be  made 
useful  beyond  themselves  ;  any  mode  of  skill  which  is  achieved 
with  deepening  of  knowledge  and  perfecting  of  judgment  i^ 
readily  put  to  use  in  new  situations  and  is  under  personal 
control.  It  was  not  the  bare  fact  of  social  and  economic 
utility  which  made  certain  activities  seem  servile  to  the  Greeks 
but  the  fact  that  the  activities  directly  connected  with  getting 
a  livelihood  were  not,  in  their  days,  the  expression  of  a  trained 
intelligence  nor  carried  on  because  of  a  personal  appreciation 
of  their  meaning.  So  far  as  farming  and  the  trades  were 
rule-of-thumb  occupations  and  so  far  as  they  were  engaged 
in  for  results  external  to  the  minds  of  agricultural  laborers 
and  mechanics,  they  were  illiberal  —  but  only  so  far.  The 
intellectual  and  social  context  has  now  changed.  The  ele- 
ments in  industry  due  to  mere  custom  and  routine  have 
become  subordinate  in  most  economic  callings  to  elements 
derived  from  scientific  inquiry.  The  most  important  occupa- 
tions of  to-day  represent  and  depend  upon  appHed  mathe- 
matics, physics,  and  chemistry.  The  area  of  the  human 
world  influenced  by  economic  production  and  influencing 
consumption  has  been  so  indefinitely  widened  that  geographi- 
cal and  political  considerations  of  an  almost  infinitely  wide 
scope  enter  in.  It  was  natural  for  Plato  to  deprecate  the 
learning  of  geometry  and  arithmetic  for  practical  ends,  be- 
cause as  matter  of  fact  the  practical  uses  to  which  they  were 
put  were  few,  lacking  in  content  and  mostly  mercenary  in 
quality.  But  as  their  social  uses  have  increased  and  en- 
larged, their  liberalizing  or  '  intellectual '  value  and  their 
practical  value  approach  the  same  limit. 

Doubtless  the  factor  which  chiefly  prevents  our  full  recog- 
nition and  employment  of  this  identification  is  the  conditions 


304  Philosophy  of  Education 

under  which  so  much  work  is  still  carried  on.  The  invention 
of  machines  has  extended  the  amount  of  leisure  which  is 
possible  even  while  one  is  at  work.  It  is  a  commonplace 
that  the  mastery  of  skill  in  the  form  of  established  habits 
frees  the  mind  for  a  higher  order  of  thinking.  Something  of 
the  same  kind  is  true  of  the  introduction  of  mechanically 
automatic  operations  in  industry.  They  may  release  the 
mind  for  thought  upon  other  topics.  But  when  we  confine  the 
education  of  those  who  work  with  their  hands  to  a  few  years 
of  schooling  devoted  for  the  most  part  to  acquiring  the  use 
of  rudimentary  symbols  at  the  expense  of  training  in  science, 
literature,  and  history,  we  fail  to  prepare  the  minds  of  workers 
to  take  advantage  of  this  opportunity.  More  fundamental 
is  the  fact  that  the  great  majority  of  workers  have  no  insight 
into  the  social  aims  of  their  pursuits  and  no  direct  personal 
interest  in  them.  The  results  actually  achieved  are  not  the 
ends  Q^  their  actions,  but  only  of  their  employers.  They  do 
what  they  do,  not  freely  and  intelligently,  but  for  the  sake 
of  the  wage  earned.  It  is  this  fact  which  makes  the  action 
illiberal,  and  which  will  make  any  education  designed  simply 
to  give  skill  in  such  undertakings  ilHberal  and  immoral. 
The  activity  is  not  free  because  not  freely  participated  in. 
Nevertheless,  there  is  already  an  opportunity  for  an  edu- 
cation which,  keeping  in  mind  the  larger  features  of  work, 
will  reconcile  liberal  nurture  with  training  in  social  service- 
ableness,  with  ability  to  share  efficiently  and  happily  in 
occupations  which  are  productive.  And  such  an  education 
will  of  itself  tend  to  do  away  with  the  evils  of  the  existing 
economic  situation.  In  the  degree  in  which  men  have  an 
active  concern  in  the  ends  that  control  their  activity,  their 
activity  becomes  free  or  voluntary  and  loses  its  externally 
enforced  and  servile  quality,  even  though  the  physical  aspect 
of  behavior  remain  the  same.  In  what  is  termed  politics, 
democratic  social  organization  makes  provision  for  this 
direct  participation  in  control:   in  the  economic  region,  con- 


Labor  and  Leisure  305 

trol  remains  external  and  autocratic.  Hence  the  split  between 
inner  mental  action  and  outer  physical  action  of  which  the 
traditional  distinction  between  the  liberal  and  the  utiHtarian 
is  the  reflex.  An  education  which  should  unify  the  dis- 
position of  the  members  of  society  would  do  much  to  unify 
society  itself. 

Summary.  —  Of  the  segregations  of  educational  values 
discussed  in  the  last  chapter,  that  between  culture  and  utility 
is  probably  the  most  fundamental.  While  the  distinction  is 
often  thought  to  be  intrinsic  and  absolute,  it  is  really  historical 
and  social.  It  originated,  so  far  as  conscious  formulation  is 
concerned,  in  Greece,  and  was  based  upon  the  fact  that  the 
truly  human  Ufe  was  lived  only  by  a  few  who  subsisted  upon 
the  results  of  the  labor  of  others.  This  fact  affected  the 
psychological  doctrine  of  the  relation  of  intelligence  and 
desire,  theory  and  practice.  It  was  embodied  in  a  political 
theory  of  a  permanent  division  of  human  beings  into  those 
capable  of  a  life  of  reason  and  hence  having  their  own  ends, 
and  those  capable  only  of  desire  and  work,  and  needing  to 
have  their  ends  provided  by  others.  The  two  distinctions, 
psychological  and  poHtical,  translated  into  educational 
terms,  effected  a  division  between  a  hberal  education,  having 
to  do  with  the  self-sufficing  life  of  leisure  devoted  to  knowing 
for  its  own  sake,  and  a  useful,  practical  training  for  mechanical 
occupations,  devoid  of  intellectual  and  aesthetic  content. 
While  the  present  situation  is  radically  diverse  in  theory  and 
much  changed  in  fact,  the  factors  of  the  older  historic  situ- 
ation still  persist  sufficiently  to  maintain  the  educational 
distinction,  along  with  compromises  which  often  reduce  the 
efficacy  of  the  educational  measures.  The  problem  of  educa- 
tion in  a  democratic  society  is  to  do  away  with  the  dualism 
and  to  construct  a  course  of  studies  which  makes  thought  a 
guide  of  free  practice  for  all  and  which  makes  leisure  a  reward 
of  accepting  responsibility  for  service,  rather  than  a  state  of 
exemption  from  it. 

X 


CHAPTER  XX 

INTELLECTUAL   AND   PRACTICAL   STUDIES 

1.   The  Opposition  of  Experience  and  True  Knowledge.  — 

As  livelihood  and  leisure  are  opposed,  so  are  theory  and  prac- 
tice, intelligence  and  execution,  knowledge  and  activity.  The 
latter  set  of  oppositions  doubtless  springs  from  the  same  social 
conditions  which  produce  the  former  conflict;  but  certain 
definite  problems  of  education  connected  with  them  make  it 
desirable  to  discuss  explicitly  the  matter  of  the  relationship 
and  alleged  separation  of  knowing  and  doing. 

The  notion  that  knowledge  is  derived  from  a  higher  source 
than  is  practical  activity,  and  possesses  a  higher  and  more 
spiritual  worth,  has  a  long  history.  The  history  so  far  as 
conscious  statement  is  concerned  takes  us  back  to  the  con- 
ceptions of  experience  and  of  reason  formulated  by  Plato 
and  Aristotle.  Much  as  these  thinkers  differed  in  many 
respects,  they  agreed  in  identifying  experience  with  purely 
practical  concerns  ;  and  hence  with  material  interests  as  to  its 
purpose  and  with  the  body  as  to  its  organ.  Knowledge,  on  the 
other  hand,  existed  for  its  own  sake  free  from  practical  refer- 
ence, and  found  its  source  and  organ  in  a  purely  immaterial 
mind ;  it  had  to  do  with  spiritual  or  ideal  interests.  Again, 
experience  always  involved  lack,  need,  desire;  it  was  never 
self-sufficing.  Rational  knowing,  on  the  other  hand,  was  com- 
plete and  comprehensive  within  itself.  Hence  the  practical 
life  was  in  a  condition  of  perpetual  flux,  while  intellectual 
knowledge  concerned  eternal  truth. 

This  sharp  antithesis  is  connected  with  the  fact  that  Athe- 
nian philosophy  began  as  a  criticism  of  custom  and  tradition 

^06 


Intellectual  and  Practical  Studies  307 

as  standards  of  knowledge  and  conduct.  In  a  search  fov 
something  to  replace  them,  it  hit  upon  reason  as  the  only 
adequate  guide  of  beHef  and  activity.  Since  custom  and 
tradition  were  identified  with  experience,  it  followed  at  once 
that  reason  was  superior  to  experience.  Moreover,  experience, 
not  content  with  its  proper  position  of  subordination,  was  the 
great  foe  to  the  acknowledgment  of  the  authority  of  reason. 
Since  custom  and  traditionary  behefs  held  men  in  bondage,  the 
struggle  of  reason  for  its  legitimate  supremacy  could  be  won 
only  by  showing  the  inherently  unstable  and  inadequate 
nature  of  experience. 

The  statement  of  Plato  that  philosophers  should  be  kings 
may  best  be  understood  as  a  statement  that  rational  intelli- 
gence and  not  habit,  appetite,  impulse,  and  emotion  should 
regulate  human  affairs.  The  former  secures  unity,  order,  and 
law;  the  latter  signify  multiphcity  and  discord,  irrational 
fluctuations  from  one  estate  to  another. 

The  grounds  for  the  identification  of  experience  with  the 
unsatisfactory  condition  of  things,  the  state  of  affairs  repre- 
sented by  rule  of  mere  custom,  are  not  far  to  seek.  Increas- 
ing trade  and  travel,  colonizations,  migrations  and  wars,  had 
broadened  the  intellectual  horizon.  The  customs  and  beUefs 
of  different  communities  were  found  to  diverge  sharply  from 
one  another.  Civil  disturbance  had  become  a  custom  in 
Athens ;  the  fortunes  of  the  dty  seemed  given  over  to  strife 
of  factions.  The  increase  of  leisure  coinciding  with  the 
broadening  of  the  horizon  had  brought  into  ken  many  new 
facts  of  nature  and  had  stimulated  curiosity  and  speculation. 
The  situation  tended  to  raise  the  question  as  to  the  existence 
of  anything  constant  and  universal  in  the  realm  of  nature 
and  society.  Reason  was  the  faculty  by  which  the  universal 
principle  and  essence  is  apprehended;  while  the  senses  were 
the  organs  of  perceiving  change,  —  the  unstable  and  the 
diverse  as  against  the  permanent  and  uniform.  The  results 
of  the  work  of  the  senses,  preserved  in  memory  and  imagi- 


3o8  Philosophy  of  Education 

nation,  and  applied  in  the  skill  given  by  habit,  constituted 
experience. 

Experience  at  its  best  is  thus  represented  in  the  various 
handicrafts  —  the  arts  of  peace  and  war.  The  cobbler,  the 
flute  player,  the  soldier,  have  undergone  the  discipline  of 
experience  to  acquire  the  skill  they  have.  This  means  that 
the  bodily  organs,  particularly  the  senses,  have  had  repeated 
contact  with  things  and  that  the  result  of  these  contacts  has 
been  preserved  and  consolidated  till  abihty  in  foresight  and  in 
practice  had  been  secured.  Such  was  the  essential  meaning 
of  the  term  "  empirical."  It  suggested  a  knowledge  and  an 
ability  not  based  upon  insight  into  principles,  but  expressing 
the  result  of  a  large  number  of  separate  trials.  It  expressed 
the  idea  now  conveyed  by  "  method  of  trial  and  error,"  with 
especial  emphasis  upon  the  more  or  less  accidental  character 
of  the  trials.  So  far  as  abihty  of  control,  of  management,  was 
concerned,  it  amounted  to  rule-of-thumb  procedure,  to  routine. 
If  new  circumstances  resembled  the  past,  it  might  work  well 
enough;  in  the  degree  in  which  they  deviated,  failure  was 
Hkely.  Even  to-day  to  speak  of  a  physician  as  an  empiricist 
is  to  imply  that  he  lacks  scientific  training,  and  that  he  is 
proceeding  simply  on  the  basis  of  what  he  happens  to  have 
got  out  of  the  chance  medley  of  his  past  practice.  Just 
because  of  the  lack  of  science  or  reason  in  '  experience  '  it 
is  hard  to  keep  it  at  its  poor  best.  The  empiric  easily  degen- 
erates into  the  quack.  He  does  not  know  where  his  knowledge 
begins  or  leaves  off,  and  so  when  he  gets  beyond  routine  con- 
ditions he  begins  to  pretend  —  to  make  claims  for  which 
there  is  no  justification,  and  to  trust  to  luck  and  to  abihty  to 
impose  upon  others  —  to  '  bluff.'  Moreover,  he  assumes  that 
because  he  has  learned  one  thing,  he  knows  others  —  as  the 
history  of  Athens  showed  that  the  common  craftsmen 
thought  they  could  manage  household  affairs,  education, 
and  pohtics,  because  they  had  learned  to  do  the  specific 
things  of  their  trades.     Experience  is  always  hovering,  then. 


Intellectual  and  Practical  Studies  309 

on  the  edge  of  pretense,  of  sham,  of  seeming,  and  appear- 
ance, in  distinction  from  the  reality  upon  which  reason  lays 
hold. 

The  philosophers  soon  reached  certain  generalizations  from 
this  state  of  affairs.  The  senses  are  connected  with  the 
appetites,  with  wants  and  desires.  They  lay  hold  not  on  the 
reaUty  of  things  but  on  the  relation  which  things  have  to  our 
pleasures  and  pains,  to  the  satisfaction  of  wants  and  the 
welfare  of  the  body.  They  are  important  only  for  the  life 
of  the  body,  which  is  but  a  fixed  substratum  for  a  higher  life. 
Experience  thus  has  a  definitely  material  character ;  it  has  to 
do  with  physical  things  in  relation  to  the  body.  In  contrast, 
reason,  or  science,  lays  hold  of  the  immaterial,  the  ideal,  the 
spiritual.  There  is  something  morally  dangerous  about 
experience,  as  such  words  as  sensual,  carnal,  material,  worldly, 
interests  suggest ;  while  pure  reason  and  spirit  connote  some- 
thing morally  praiseworthy.  Moreover,  ineradicable  con- 
nection with  the  changing,  the  inexpHcably  shifting,  and 
with  the  manifold,  the  diverse,  clings  to  experience.  Its 
material  is  inherently  variable  and  untrustworthy.  It  is 
anarchic,  because  unstable.  The  man  who  trusts  to  experi- 
ence does  not  know  what  he  depends  upon,  since  it  changes 
from  person  to  person,  from  day  to  day,  to  say  nothing  of 
from  country  to  country.  Its  connection  with  the  *  many,' 
with  various  particulars,  has  the  same  effect,  and  also  carries 
conflict  in  its  train. 

Only  the  single,  the  uniform,  assures  coherence  and  har- 
mony. Out  of  experience  come  warrings,  the  conflict  of 
opinions  and  acts  within  the  individual  and  between  indi- 
viduals. From  experience  no  standard  of  belief  can  issue, 
because  it  is  the  very  nature  of  experience  to  instigate  all 
kinds  of  contrary  beliefs,  as  varieties  of  local  custom  proved. 
Its  logical  outcome  is  that  anything  is  good  and  true  to  the 
particular  individual  which  his  experience  leads  him  to  be- 
lieve true  and  good  at  a  particular  time  and  place. 


3IO  Philosophy  of  Education 

Finally  practice  falls  of  necessity  within  experience.  Doing 
proceeds  from  needs  and  aims  at  change.  To  produce  or  to 
make  is  to  alter  something ;  to  consume  is  to  alter.  All  the 
obnoxious  characters  of  change  and  diversity  thus  attach  them- 
selves to  doing  while  knowing  is  as  permanent  as  its  object. 
To  know,  to  grasp  a  thing  intellectually  or  theoretically,  is 
to  be  out  of  the  region  of  vicissitude,  chance,  and  diversity. 
Truth  has  no  lack ;  it  is  untouched  by  the  perturbations  of 
the  world  of  sense.  It  deals  with  the  eternal  and  the  uni- 
versal. And  the  world  of  experience  can  be  brought  under 
control,  can  be  steadied  and  ordered,  only  through  subjection 
to  its  law  of  reason. 

It  would  not  do,  of  course,  to  say  that  all  these  distinctions 
persisted  in  full  technical  deliniteness.  But  they  all  of  them 
profoundly  influenced  men's  subsequent  thinking  and  their 
ideas  about  education.  The  contempt  for  physical  as  com- 
pared with  mathematical  and  logical  science,  for  the  senses 
and  sense  observation ;  the  feeling  that  knowledge  is  high  and 
worthy  in  the  degree  in  which  it  deals  with  ideal  symbols 
instead  of  with  the  concrete ;  the  scorn  of  particulars  except 
as  they  are  deductively  brought  under  a  universal ;  the  dis- 
regard for  the  body;  the  depreciation  of  arts  and  crafts  as 
intellectual  instrumentalities,  all  sought  shelter  and  found 
sanction  under  this  estimate  of  the  respective  values  of  ex- 
perience and  reason  —  or,  what  came  to  the  same  thing,  of 
the  practical  and  the  intellectual.  Medieval  philosophy 
continued  and  reenforced  the  tradition.  To  know  reality 
meant  to  be  in  relation  to  the  supreme  reality,  or  God,  and 
to  enjoy  the  eternal  bliss  of  that  relation.  Contemplation 
of  supreme  reaUty  was  the  ultimate  end  of  man  to  which 
action  is  subordinate.  Experience  had  to  do  with  mundane, 
profane,  and  secular  affairs,  practically  necessary  indeed,  but 
of  little  import  in  comparison  with  supernatural  objects 
of  knowledge.  When  we  add  to  this  motive  the  force  de- 
rived from  the  literary  character  of  the  Roman  education  and 


Intellectual  and  Practical  Studies  311 

the  Greek  philosophic  tradition,  and  conjoin  to  them  the 
preference  for  studies  which  obviously  demarcated  the  aris- 
tocratic class  from  the  lower  classes,  we  can  readily  under- 
stand the  tremendous  power  exercised  by  the  persistent 
preference  of  the  '  intellectual '  over  the  *  practical '  not  simply 
in  educational  philosophies  but  in  the  higher  schools. 

2.  The  Modem  Theory  of  Experience  and  Knowledge.  — 
As  we  shall  see  later,  the  development  of  experimentation 
as  a  method  of  knowledge  makes  possible  and  necessitates  a 
radical  transformation  of  the  view  just  set  forth.  But  be- 
fore coming  to  that,  we  have  to  note  the  theory  of  experience 
and  knowledge  developed  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries.  In  general,  it  presents  us  with  an  almost  complete 
reversal  of  the  classic  doctrine  of  the  relations  of  experience 
and  reason.  To  Plato  experience  meant  habituation,  or  the 
conservation  of  the  net  product  of  a  lot  of  past  chance  trials. 
Reason  meant  the  principle  of  reform,  of  progress,  of  increase 
of  control.  Devotion  to  the  cause  of  reason  meant  breaking 
through  the  Hmitations  of  custom  and  getting  at  things  as 
they  really  were.  To  the  modern  reformers,  the  situation 
was  the  other  way  around.  Reason,  universal  principles,  a 
priori  notions,  meant  either  blank  forms  which  had  to  be  filled 
in  by  experience,  by  sense  observations,  in  order  to  get  signifi- 
cance and  vahdity ;  or  else  were  mere  indurated  prejudices, 
dogmas  imposed  by  authority,  which  masqueraded  and  found 
protection  under  august  names.  The  great  need  was  to  break 
way  from  captivity  to  conceptions  which,  as  Bacon  put  it, 
'anticipated  nature'  and  imposed  merely  human  opinions 
upon  her,  and  to  resort  to  experience  to  find  out  what 
nature  was  like.  Appeal  to  experience  marked  the  breach  with 
authority.  It  meant  openness  to  new  impressions ;  eagerness 
in  discovery  and  invention  instead  of  absorption  in  tabulating 
and  systematizing  received  ideas  and  '  proving  '  them  by 
means  of  the  relations  they  sustained  to  one  another.  It 
was  the  irruption  into  the  mind  of  the  things  as  they  really 


^12  Philosophy  of  Education 

were,  free  from  the  veil  cast  over  them  by  preconceived 
ideas. 

The  change  was  twofold.  Experience  lost  the  practical 
meaning  which  it  had  borne  from  the  time  of  Plato.  It 
ceased  to  mean  ways  of  doing  and  being  done  to,  and  became 
a  name  for  something  intellectual  and  cognitive.  It  meant 
the  apprehension  of  material  which  should  ballast  and  check 
the  exercise  of  reasoning.  By  the  modern  philosophic  em- 
piricist and  by  his  opponent,  experience  has  been  looked  upon 
just  as  a  way  of  knowing.  The  only  question  was  how  good 
a  way  it  is.  The  result  was  an  even  greater  *  intellectuaHsm  ' 
than  is  found  in  ancient  philosophy,  if  that  word  be  used  to 
designate  an  emphatic  and  almost  exclusive  interest  in  knowl- 
edge in  its  isolation.  Practice  was  not  so  much  subordinated 
to  knowledge  as  treated  as  a  kind  of  tag-end  or  aftermath  of 
knowledge.  The  educational  result  was  only  to  confirm  the 
exclusion  of  active  pursuits  from  the  school,  save  as  they  might 
be  brought  in  for  purely  utiUtarian  ends  —  the  acquisition 
by  drill  of  certain  habits.  In  the  second  place,  the  interest 
in  experience  as  a  means  of  basing  truth  upon  objects,  upon 
nature,  led  to  looking  at  the  mind  as  purely  receptive.  The 
more  passive  the  mind  is,  the  more  truly  objects  will  impress 
themselves  upon  it.  For  the  mind  to  take  a  hand,  so  to  speak, 
would  be  for  it  in  the  very  process  of  knowing  to  vitiate  true 
knowledge  —  to  defeat  its  own  purpose.  The  ideal  was  a 
maximum  of  receptivity. 

Since  the  impressions  made  upon  the  mind  by  objects  were 
generally  termed  sensations,  empiricism  thus  became  a  doc- 
trine of  sensationalism  —  that  is  to  say,  a  doctrine  which 
identified  knowledge  with  the  reception  and  association  of 
sensory  impressions.  In  John  Locke,  the  most  influential  of 
the  empiricists,  we  find  this  sensationalism  mitigated  by  a 
recognition  of  certain  mental  faculties,  like  discernment  or 
discrimination,  comparison,  abstraction,  and  generalization 
which  work  up  the  material  of  sense  into  definite  and  organized 


Intellectual  and  Practical  Studies  313 

forms  and  which  even  evolve  new  ideas  on  their  own  account, 
such  as  the  fundamental  conceptions  of  morals  and  mathe- 
matics. (See  ante,  p.  71.)  But  some  of  his  successors,  espe- 
cially in  France  in  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
carried  his  doctrine  to  the  limit ;  they  regarded  discernment 
and  judgment  as  peculiar  sensations  made  in  us  by  the  con- 
joint presence  of  other  sensations.  Locke  had  held  that  the 
mind  is  a  blank  piece  of  paper,  or  a  wax  tablet  with  not?iing 
engraved  on  it  at  birth  (  a  tabula  rasa)  so  far  as  any  contents 
of  ideas  were  concerned,  but  had  endowed  it  with  activities 
to  be  exercised  upon  the  material  received.  His  French 
successors  razed  away  the  powers  and  derived  them  also  from 
impressions  received. 

As  we  have  earher  noted,  this  notion  was  fostered  by  the 
new  interest  in  education  as  method  of  social  reform.  (See 
ante,  p.  108.)  The  emptier  the  mind  to  begin  with,  the 
more  it  may  be  made  anything  we  wish  by  bringing  the 
right  influences  to  bear  upon  it.  Thus  Helvetius,  perhaps 
the  most  extreme  and  consistent  sensationalist,  proclaimed 
that  education  could  do  anything  —  that  it  was  omnipotent. 
Within  the  sphere  of  school  instruction,  empiricism  found 
its  directly  beneficial  oflace  in  protesting  against  mere  book 
learning.  If  knowledge  comes  from  the  impressions  made 
upon  us  by  natural  objects,  it  is  impossible  to  procure  knowl- 
edge without  the  use  of  objects  which  impress  the  mind. 
Words,  all  kinds  of  linguistic  symbols,  in  the  lack  of  prior 
presentations  of  objects  with  which  they  may  be  associated, 
convey  nothing  but  sensations  of  their  own  shape  and  color  — 
certainly  not  a  very  instructive  kind  of  knowledge.  Sen- 
sationalism was  an  extremely  handy  weapon  with  which  to 
combat  doctrines  and  opinions  resting  wholly  upon  tradition 
and  authority.  With  respect  to  all  of  them,  it  set  up  a  test : 
Where  are  the  real  objects  from  which  these  ideas  and  beliefs 
are  received?  If  such  objects  could  not  be  produced,  ideas 
were  explained  as  the  result  of  false  associations  and  com- 


314  Philosophy  of  Education 

binations.  Empiricism  also  insisted  upon  a  first-hand 
element.  The  impression  must  be  made  upon  me,  upon 
my  mind.  The  further  we  get  away  from  this  direct,  first- 
hand source  of  knowledge,  the  more  numerous  the  sources 
of  error,  and  the  vaguer  the  resulting  idea. 

As  might  be  expected,  however,  the  philosophy  was  weak 
upon  the  positive  side.  Of  course,  the  value  of  natural  ob- 
jects and  first-hand  acquaintance  was  not  dependent  upon 
the  truth  of  the  theory.  Introduced  into  the  schools  they 
would  do  their  work,  even  if  the  sensational  theory  about 
the  way  in  which  they  did  it  was  quite  wrong.  So  far,  there 
is  nothing  to  complain  of.  But  the  emphasis  upon  sensa- 
tionalism also  operated  to  influence  the  way  in  which  natural 
objects  were  employed,  and  to  prevent  full  good  being  got 
from  them.  *'  Object  lessons  "  tended  to  isolate  the  mere 
sense-activity  and  make  it  an  end  in  itself.  The  more  isolated 
the  object,  the  more  isolated  the  sensory  quality,  the  more 
distinct  the  sense-impression  as  a  unit  of  knowledge.  The 
theory  worked  not  only  in  the  direction  of  this  mechanical 
isolation,  which  tended  to  reduce  instruction  to  a  kind  of 
physical  gymnastic  of  the  sense-organs  (good  like  any  gym- 
nastic of  bodily  organs,  but  not  more  so),  but  also  to  the 
neglect  of  thinking.  According  to  the  theory  there  was  no  need 
of  thinking  in  connection  with  sense-observation ;  in  fact,  in 
strict  theory  such  thinking  would  be  impossible  till  after- 
wards, for  thinking  consisted  simply  in  combining  and 
separating  sensory  units  which  had  been  received  without 
any  participation  of  judgment. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  accordingly,  practically  no  scheme  of 
education  upon  a  purely  sensory  basis  has  ever  been  system- 
atically tried,  at  least  after  the  early  years  of  infancy.  Its 
obvious  deficiencies  have  caused  it  to  be  resorted  to  simply 
for  filling  in  *  rationalistic '  knowledge  (that  is  to  say, 
knowledge  of  definitions,  rules,  classifications,  and  modes  of 
application  conveyed  through  symbols),  and  as  a  device  for 


Intellectual  and  Practical  Studies  315 

lending  greater  '  interest '  to  barren  symbols.  There  are  at 
least  three  serious  defects  of  sensationaHstic  empiricism  as 
an  educational  philosophy  of  knowledge,  (a)  The  historical 
value  of  the  theory  was  critical ;  it  was  a  dissolvent  of  current 
beliefs  about  the  world  and  political  institutions.  It  was  a 
destructive  organ  of  criticism  of  hard  and  fast  dogmas.  But 
the  work  of  education  is  constructive,  not  critical.  It  as- 
sumes not  old  beliefs  to  be  eUminated  and  revised,  but  the 
need  of  building  up  new  experience  into  intellectual  habitudes 
as  correct  as  possible  from  the  start.  SensationaHsm  is  highly 
unfitted  for  this  constructive  task.  Mind,  understanding, 
denotes  responsiveness  to  meanings  {Ante,  p.  35),  not  response 
to  direct  physical  stimuli.  And  meaning  exists  only  with 
reference  to  a  context,  which  is  excluded  by  any  scheme  which 
identifies  knowledge  with  a  combination  of  sense-impres- 
sions. The  theory,  so  far  as  educationally  applied,  led  either 
to  a  magnification  of  mere  physical  excitations  or  else  to  a 
mere  heaping  up  of  isolated  objects  and  qualities. 

{h)  While  direct  impression  has  the  advantage  of  being 
first  hand,  it  also  has  the  disadvantage  of  being  limited  in 
range.  Direct  acquaintance  with  the  natural  surroundings 
of  the  home  environment  so  as  to  give  reality  to  ideas 
about  portions  of  tlie  earth  beyond  the  reach  of  the  senses, 
and  as  a  means  of  arousing  intellectual  curiosity,  is  one  thing. 
As  an  end-all  and  be-all  of  geographical  knowledge  it  is 
fatally  restricted.  In  precisely  analogous  fashion,  beans, 
shoe  pegs,  and  counters  may  be  helpful  aids  to  a  realization 
of  numerical  relations,  but  when  employed  except  as  aids  to 
thought  —  the  apprehension  of  meaning  —  they  become  an 
obstacle  to  the  growth  of  arithmetical  understanding.  They 
arrest  growth  on  a  low  plane,  the  plane  of  specific  physical 
symbols.  Just  as  the  race  developed  especial  symbols  as 
tools  of  calculation  and  mathematical  reasonings,  because 
the  use  of  the  fingers  as  numerical  symbols  got  in  the  way, 
so  the  individual  must  progress  from  concrete  to  abstract 


3i6  Philosophy  of  Education 

symbols  —  that  is,  symbols  whose  meaning  is  realized  only 
through  conceptual  thinking.  And  undue  absorption  at  the 
outset  in  the  physical  object  of  sense  hampers  this  growth. 

(c)  A  thoroughly  false  psychology  of  mental  development 
underlay  sensationaHstic  empiricism.  Experience  is  in  truth 
a  matter  of  activities,  instinctive  and  impulsive,  in  their  inter- 
actions with  things.  What  even  an  infant  '  experiences ' 
is  not  a  passively  received  quality  impressed  by  an  object, 
but  the  effect  which  some  activity  of  handling,  throwing, 
pounding,  tearing,  etc.,  has  upon  an  object,  and  the 
consequent  effect  of  the  object  upon  the  direction  of 
activities.  (See  ante,  p.  164.)  Fundamentally  (as  we  shall 
see  in  more  detail),  the  ancient  notion  of  experience  as  a 
practical  matter  is  truer  to  fact  than  the  modern  notion  of  it 
as  a  mode  of  knowing  by  means  of  sensations.  The  neglect 
of  the  deep-seated  active  and  motor  factors  of  experience  is 
a  fatal  defect  of  the  traditional  empirical  philosophy.  Noth- 
ing is  more  uninteresting  and  mechanical  than  a  scheme  of 
object  lessons  which  ignores  and  as  far  as  may  be  excludes  the 
natural  tendency  to  learn  about  the  qualities  of  objects  by 
the  uses  to  which  they  are  put  through  trying  to  do  something 
with  them. 

It  is  obvious,  accordingly,  that  even  if  the  philosophy  of 
experience  represented  by  modern  empiricism  had  received 
more  general  theoretical  assent  than  has  been  accorded  to  it, 
it  could  not  have  furnished  a  satisfactory  philosophy  of  the 
learning  process.  Its  educational  influence  was  confined  to 
injecting  a  new  factor  into  the  older  curriculum,  with  inci- 
dental modifications  of  the  older  studies  and  methods.  It 
introduced  greater  regard  for  observation  of  things  directly 
and  through  pictures  and  graphic  descriptions,  and  it  reduced 
the  importance  attached  to  verbal  symbolization.  But  its 
own  scope  was  so  meager  that  it  required  supplementation 
by  information  concerning  matters  outside  of  sense-perception 
and  by  matters  which  appealed  more  directly  to  thought 


Intellectual  and  Practical  Studies  317 

Consequently  it  left  unimpaired  the  scope  of  informational 
and  abstract,  or  '  rationalistic  '  studies. 

3.  Experience  as  Experimentation.  —  It  has  already  been 
intimated  that  sensational  empiricism  represents  neither  the 
idea  of  experience  justified  by  modern  psychology  nor  the 
idea  of  knowledge  suggested  by  modern  scientific  procedure. 
With  respect  to  the  former,  it  omits  the  primary  position  of 
active  response  which  puts  things  to  use  and  which  learns 
about  them  through  discovering  the  consequences  that 
result  from  use.  It  would  seem  as  if  five  minutes'  unpreju- 
diced observation  of  the  way  an  infant  gains  knowledge 
would  have  sufficed  to  overthrow  the  notion  that  he  is  pas- 
sively engaged  in  receiving  impressions  of  isolated  ready- 
made  quahties  of  sound,  color,  hardness,  etc.  For  it  would 
be  seen  that  the  infant  reacts  to  stimuH  by  activities  of  han- 
dling, reaching,  etc.,  in  order  to  see  what  results  follow  upon 
motor  response  to  a  sensory  stimulation ;  it  would  be  seen 
that  what  is  learned  are  not  isolated  qualities,  but  the  be- 
havior which  may  be  expected  from  a  thing,  and  the 
changes  in  things  and  persons  which  an  activity  may  be  ex- 
pected to  produce.  In  other  words,  what  he  learns  are  con- 
nections. Even  such  qualities  as  red  color,  sound  of  a  high 
pitch,  have  to  be  discriminated  and  identified  on  the  basis  of 
the  activities  they  call  forth  and  the  consequences  these 
activities  effect.  We  learn  what  things  are  hard  and  what 
are  soft  by  finding  out  through  active  experimentation  what 
they  respectively  will  do  and  what  can  be  done  and  what 
cannot  be  done  with  them.  In  like  fashion,  children  learn 
about  persons  by  finding  out  what  responsive  activities  these 
persons  exact  and  what  these  persons  will  do  in  reply  to 
the  children's  activities.  And  the  combination  of  what  things 
do  to  us  (not  in  impressing  qualities  on  a  passive  mind)  in 
modifying  our  actions,  furthering  some  of  them  and  resist- 
ing and  checking  others,  and  what  we  can  do  to  them  in 
producing  new  changes  constitutes  experience. 


3iS  Philosophy  of  Education 

The  methods  of  science  by  which  the  revolution  in  oul 
knowledge  of  the  world  dating  from  the  seventeenth  century, 
was  brought  about,  teach  the  same  lesson.  For  these 
methods  are  nothing  but  experimentation  carried  out  under 
conditions  of  deUberate  control.  To  the  Greek,  it  seemed  ab- 
surd that  such  an  activity  as,  say,  the  cobbler  punching  holes 
in  leather,  or  using  wax  and  needle  and  thread,  could  give  an 
adequate  knowledge  of  the  world.  It  seemed  almost  axio- 
matic that  for  true  knowledge  we  must  have  recourse  to 
concepts  coming  from  a  reason  above  experience.  But 
the  introduction  of  the  experimental  method  signified 
precisely  that  such  operations,  carried  on  under  con- 
ditions of  control,  are  just  the  ways  in  which  fruitful 
ideas  about  nature  are  obtained  and  tested.  In  other  words, 
it  is  only  needed  to  conduct  such  an  operation  as  the  pouring 
of  an  acid  on  a  metal  for  the  purpose  of  getting  knowledge 
instead  of  for  the  purpose  of  getting  a  trade  result,  in 
order  to  lay  hold  of  the  principle  upon  which  the  science  of 
nature  was  henceforth  to  depend.  Sense  perceptions  were 
indeed  indispensable,  but  there  was  less  rehance  upon  sense 
perceptions  in  their  natural  or  customary  form  than  in  the 
older  science.  They  were  no  longer  regarded  as  containing 
within  themselves  some  *  form  '  or  *  species  '  of  universal 
kind  in  a  disguised  mask  of  sense  which  could  be  stripped  off 
by  rational  thought.  On  the  contrary,  the  first  thing  was  to 
alter  and  extend  the  data  of  sense  perception  :  to  act  upon  the 
given  objects  of  sense  by  the  lens  of  the  telescope  and  micro- 
scope, and  by  all  sorts  of  experimental  devices.  To  accomplish 
this  in  a  way  which  would  arouse  new  ideas  (hypotheses, 
theories)  required  even  more  general  ideas  (Hke  those  of 
mathematics)  than  were  at  the  command  of  ancient  science. 
But  these  general  conceptions  were  no  longer  taken  to  give 
knowledge  in  themselves.  They  were  implements  for  in- 
stituting, conducting,  interpreting  experimental  inquiries  and . 
formulating  their  results. 


Intellectual  and  Practical  Studies  319 

The  logical  outcome  is  a  new  philosophy  of  experience  and 
knowledge,  a  philosophy  which  no  longer  puts  experience  in 
opposition  to  rational  knowledge  and  explanation.  Expe- 
rience is  no  longer  a  mere  summarizing  of  what  has  been  done 
in  a  more  or  less  chance  way  in  the  past;  it  is  a  deMberate 
control  of  what  is  done  with  reference  to  making  what  hap- 
pens to  us  and  what  we  do  to  things  as  fertile  as  possible 
of  suggestions  (of  suggested  meanings)  and  a  means  for  trying 
out  the  vaHdity  of  the  suggestions.  When  trying,  or  exper- 
imenting, ceases  to  be  bUnded  by  impulse  or  custom,  when  it 
is  guided  by  an  aim  and  conducted  by  measure  and  method, 
it  becomes  reasonable  — ■  rational.  When  what  we  suffer  from 
things,  what  we  undergo  at  their  hands,  ceases  to  be  a  matter 
of  chance  circumstance,  when  it  is  transformed  into  a  con- 
sequence of  our  own  prior  purposive  endeavors,  it  becomes 
rationally  significant  —  enhghtening  and  instructive.  The 
antithesis  of  empiricism  and  rationalism  loses  the  support 
of  the  human  situation  which  once  gave  it  meaning  and  rela- 
tive justification. 

The  bearing  of  this  change  upon  the  opposition  of  purely 
practical  and  purely  intellectual  studies  is  self-evident.  The 
distinction  is  not  intrinsic  but  is  dependent  upon  conditions, 
and  upon  conditions  which  can  be  regulated.  Practical  activ- 
ities may  be  intellectually  narrow  and  trivial;  they  will  be 
so  in  so  far  as  they  are  routine,  carried  on  under  the  dictates 
of  authority,  and  having  in  view  merely  some  external  result. 
But  childhood  and  youth,  the  period  of  schooHng,  is  just  the 
time  when  it  is  possible  to  carry  them  on  in  a  different  spirit. 
It  is  inexpedient  to  repeat  the  discussions  of  our  previous  chap- 
ters on  thinking  and  on  the  evolution  of  educative  subject 
matter  from  childhke  work  and  play  to  logically  organized 
subject  matter.  The  discussions  of  this  chapter  and  the  prior 
one  should,  however,  give  an  added  meaning  to  those  results. 

(i)  Experience  itself  primarily  consists  of  the  active  re- 
lations subsisting  between  a  human  being  and  his  natural 


320  Philosophy  of  Education 

and  social  surroundings.  In  some  cases,  the  initiative  in 
activity  is  on  the  side  of  the  environment ;  the  human  being 
undergoes  or  suffers  certain  checkings  and  deflections  of 
endeavors.  In  other  cases,  the  behavior  of  surrounding 
things  and  persons  carries  to  a  successful  issue  the  active 
tendencies  of  the  individual,  so  that  in  the  end  what  the 
individual  undergoes  are  consequences  which  he  has  himself 
tried  to  produce.  In  just  the  degree  in  which  connections 
are  established  between  what  happens  to  a  person  and  what 
he  does  in  response,  and  between  what  he  does  to  his  environ- 
ment and  what  it  does  in  response  to  him,  his  acts  and  the 
things  about  him  acquire  meaning.  He  learns  to  under- 
stand both  himself  and  the  world  of  men  and  things.  Pur- 
posive education  or  schooling  should  present  such  an  environ- 
ment that  this  interaction  will  effect  acquisition  of  those 
meanings  which  are  so  important  that  they  become,  in  turn, 
instruments  of  further  learnings.  {Ante,  Ch.  XI.)  As  has 
been  repeatedly  pointed  out,  activity  out  of  school  is  carried 
on  under  conditions  which  have  not  been  deliberately  adapted 
to  promoting  the  function  of  understanding  and  formation 
of  effective  intellectual  dispositions.  The  results  are  vital 
and  genuine  as  far  as  they  go,  but  they  are  Hmited  by  all 
kinds  of  circiunstances.  Some  powers  are  left  quite  unde- 
veloped and  undirected ;  others  get  only  occasional  and 
whimsical  stimulations ;  others  are  formed  into  habits  of  a 
routine  skill  at  the  expense  of  aims  and  resourceful  initiative 
and  inventiveness.  It  is  not  the  business  of  the  school  to 
transport  youth  from  an  environment  of  activity  into  one  of 
cramped  study  of  the  records  of  other  men's  learning;  but 
to  transport  them  from  an  environment  of  relatively  chance 
activities  (accidental  in  the  relation  they  bear  to  insight  and 
thought)  into  one  of  activities  selected  with  reference  to 
guidance  of  learning.  A  slight  inspection  of  the  improved 
methods  which  have  already  shown  themselves  effective  in 
education  will  reveal  that  they  have  laid  hold,  more  or  less 


Intellectual  and  Practical  Studies  321 

consciously,  upon  the  fact  that  '  intellectual '  studies  instead 
of  being  opposed  to  active  pursuits  represent  an  intellectual- 
izing  of  practical  pursuits.  It  remains  to  grasp  the  principle 
with  greater  firmness. 

(it)  The  changes  which  are  taking  place  in  the  content  of 
social  life  tremendously  facihtate  selection  of  the  sort  of 
activities  which  will  intellectuaHze  the  play  and  work  of  the 
school.  When  one  bears  in  mind  the  social  environment  of 
the  Greeks  and  the  people  of  the  Middle  Ages,  where  such 
practical  activities  as  could  be  successfully  carried  on  were 
mostly  of  a  routine  and  external  sort  and  even  servile  in  nature, 
one  is  not  surprised  that  educators  turned  their  back  upon 
them  as  unfitted  to  cultivate  inteUigence.  But  now  that 
even  the  occupations  of  the  household,  agriculture,  and  man- 
ufacturing as  well  as  transportation  and  intercourse  are 
instinct  with  appHed  science,  the  case  stands  otherwise.  It 
is  true  that  many  of  those  who  now  engage  in  them  are  not 
aware  of  the  intellectual  content  upon  which  their  personal 
actions  depend.  But  this  fact  only  gives  an  added  reason 
why  schooHng  should  use  these  pursuits  so  as  to  enable  the 
coming  generation  to  acquire  a  comprehension  now  too 
generally  lacking,  and  thus  enable  persons  to  carry  on  then 
pursuits  intelligently  instead  of  blindly. 

(Hi)  The  most  direct  blow  at  the  traditional  separation  of 
doing  and  knowing  and  at  the  traditional  prestige  of  purely 
*  intellectual '  studies,  however,  has  been  given  by  the 
progress  of  experimental  science.  If  this  progress  has  demon- 
strated anything,  it  is  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  genuine 
knowledge  and  fruitful  understanding  except  as  the  offspring 
of  doing.  The  analysis  and  rearrangement  of  facts  which  is 
indispensable  to  the  growth  of  knowledge  and  power  of  ex- 
planation and  right  classification  cannot  be  attained  purely 
mentally — just  inside  the  head.  Men  have  to  do  something  tc 
the  things  when  they  wish  to  find  out  something ;  they  have  to 
alter  conditions.    This  is  the  lesson  of  the  laboratory  method, 


322  Philosophy  of  Editcation 

and  the  lesson  which  all  education  has  to  learn.  The  labora^ 
tory  is  a  discovery  of  the  conditions  under  which  labor  may 
become  intellectually  fruitful  and  not  merely  externally  pro- 
ductive. If,  in  too  many  cases  at  present,  it  results  only  in 
the  acquisition  of  an  additional  mode  of  technical  skill,  that 
is  because  it  stUl  remains  too  largely  but  an  isolated  resource, 
not  resorted  to  until  pupils  are  mostly  too  old  to  get  the 
full  advantage  of  it,  and  even  then  is  surrounded  by  other 
studies  where  traditional  methods  isolate  intellect  from 
activity. 

Summary.  —  The  Greeks  were  induced  to  philosophize  by 
the  increasing  failure  of  their  traditional  customs  and  beliefs 
to  regulate  life.  Thus  they  were  led  to  criticize  custom 
adversely  and  to  look  for  some  other  source  of  authority  in 
life  and  belief.  Since  they  desired  a  rational  standard  for 
the  latter,  and  ]iad  identified  with  experience  the  customs  which 
had  proved  unsatisfactory  supports,  they  were  led  to  a  flat  op- 
position of  reason  and  experience.  The  more  the  former  was 
exalted,  the  more  the  latter  was  depreciated.  Since  experience 
was  identified  with  what  men  do  and  suffer  in  particular  and 
changing  situations  of  life,  doing  shared  in  the  philosophic 
depreciation.  This  influence  fell  in  with  many  others  to 
magnify,  in  higher  education,  all  the  methods  and  topics 
which  involved  the  least  use  of  sense-observation  and  bodily 
activity.  The  modern  age  began  with  a  revolt  against  this 
point  of  view,  with  an  appeal  to  experience,  and  an  attack  upon 
so-called  purely  rational  concepts  v^n  the  ground  that  they 
either  needed  to  be  ballasted  by  the  results  of  concrete  expe- 
riences, or  else  were  mere  expressions  of  prejudice  and  institu- 
tionalized class  interest,  calling  themselves  rational  for  pro- 
tection. But  various  circumstances  led  to  considering  ex- 
perience as  pure  cognition,  leaving  out  of  account  its  intrinsic 
active  and  emotional  phases,  and  to  identifying  it  with  a 
passive  reception  of  isolated  *  sensations.'  Hence  the  ed- 
ucational reform  effected  by  the  new  theory  was  confined 


Intellectual  and  Practical  Studies  323 

mainly  to  doing  away  with  some  of  the  bookishness  of  prior 
methods;  it  did  not  accomplish  a  consistent  reorganization. 
Meantime,  the  advance  of  psychology,  of  industrial 
methods,  and  of  the  experimental  method  in  science  makes  an- 
other conception  of  experience  explicitly  desirable  and  possible. 
This  theory  reinstates  the  idea  of  the  ancients  that  experience 
is  primarily  practical,  not  cognitive  —  a  matter  of  doing  and 
undergoing  the  consequences  of  doing.  But  the  ancient 
theory  is  transformed  by  realizing  that  doing  may  be  directed 
so  as  to  take  up  into  its  own  content  all  which  thought  sug- 
gests, and  so  as  to  result  in  securely  tested  knowledge.  '  Ex- 
perience '  then  ceases  to  be  empirical  and  becomes  experi- 
mental. Reason  ceases  to  be  a  remote  and  ideal  faculty, 
and  signifies  all  the  resources  by  which  activity  is  made  fruit- 
ful in  meaning.  Educationally,  this  change  denotes  such  a 
plan  for  the  studies  and  method  of  instruction  as  has  been 
developed  in  the  previous  chapters. 


CHAPTER   XXI 

PHYSICAL  AND  SOCIAL  STUDIES  :    NATURALISM  AND  HUMANISM 

Allusion  has  already  been  made  to  the  conflict  of  natural 
science  with  Hterary  studies  for  a  place  in  the  curriculum. 
Ihe  solution  thus  far  reached  consists  essentially  in  a  somewhat 
mechanical  compromise  whereby  the  field  is  divided  between 
studies  having  nature  and  studies  having  man  as  their  theme. 
The  situation  thus  presents  us  with  another  instance  of  the 
external  adjustment  of  educational  values,  and  focuses  at- 
tention upon  the  philosophy  of  the  connection  of  nature  with 
Quman  affairs.  In  general,  it  may  be  said  that  the  educa- 
tional division  finds  a  reflection  in  the  dualistic  philosophies. 
Mind  and  the  world  are  regarded  as  two  independent  realms 
of  existence  having  certain  points  of  contact  with  each  other. 
From  this  point  of  view  it  is  natural  that  each  sphere  of  ex- 
istence should  have  its  own  separate  group  of  studies  connected 
with  it ;  it  is  even  natural  that  the  growth  of  scientific  studies 
should  be  viewed  with  suspicion  as  marking  a  tendency  of 
materiahstic  philosophy  to  encroach  upon  the  domain  of 
spirit.  Any  theory  of  education  which  contemplates  a 
more  unified  scheme  of  education  than  now  exists  is  under 
the  necessity  of  facing  the  question  of  the  relation  of  man  to 
nature. 

1.  The  Historic  Background  of  Humanistic  Study.  — 
It  is  noteworthy  that  classic  Greek  philosophy  does  not  present 
the  problem  in  its  modern  form.  Socrates  indeed  appears  to 
have  thought  that  science  of  nature  was  not  attainable  and 
not  very  important.  The  chief  thing  to  know  is  the  nature  and 
end  of  man.     Upon  that  knowledge  hangs  all  that  is  of  deep 

324 


Physical  and  Social  Studies  325 

significance  —  all  moral  and  social  achievement.  Plato, 
however,  makes  right  knowledge  of  man  and  society  depend 
upon  knowledge  of  the  essential  features  of  nature.  His  chief 
treatise,  entitled  the  Republic,  is  at  once  a  treatise  on  morals, 
on  social  organization,  and  on  the  metaphysics  and  science  of 
nature.  Since  he  accepts  the  Socratic  doctrine  that  right 
achievement  in  the  former  depends  upon  rational  knowledge, 
he  is  compelled  to  discuss  the  nature  of  knowledge.  Since 
he  accepts  the  idea  that  the  ultimate  object  of  knowledge  is 
the  discovery  of  the  good  or  end  of  man,  and  is  discontented 
with  the  Socratic  conviction  that  all  we  know  is  our  own 
ignorance,  he  connects  the  discussion  of  the  good  of  man  with 
consideration  of  the  essential  good  or  end  of  nature  itself.  To 
attempt  to  determine  the  end  of  man  apart  from  a  knowledge 
of  the  ruling  end  which  gives  law  and  unity  to  nature  is  im- 
possible. It  is  thus  quite  consistent  with  his  philosophy  that 
he  subordinates  Hterary  studies  (under  the  name  of  music)  to 
mathematics  and  to  physics  as  well  as  to  logic  and  meta- 
physics. But  on  the  other  hand,  knowledge  of  nature  is  not 
an  end  in  itself ;  it  is  a  necessary  stage  in  bringing  the  mind  to 
a  realization  of  the  supreme  purpose  of  existence  as  the  law  of 
human  action,  corporate  and  individual.  To  use  the  modem 
phraseology,  naturalistic  studies  are  indispensable,  but  they 
are  in  the  interests  of  humanistic  and  ideal  ends. 

Aristotle  goes  even  farther,  if  anything,  in  the  direction  of 
naturalistic  studies.  He  subordinates  {Ante,  p.  298)  civic  re- 
lations to  the  purely  cognitive  life.  The  highest  end  of  man 
is  not  human  but  divine  —  participation  in  pure  knowing 
which  constitutes  the  divine  life.  Such  knowing  deals  with 
what  is  universal  and  necessary,  and  finds,  therefore,  a  more 
adequate  subject  matter  in  nature  at  its  best  than  in  the 
transient  things  of  man.  K  we  take  what  the  philosophers 
stood  for  in  Greek  life,  rather  than  the  details  of  what  they  say, 
we  might  summarize  by  saying  that  the  Greeks  were  too 
much  interested  in  free  inquiry  into  natural  fact  and  in  the 


326  Philosophy  of  Education 

aesthetic  enJo3niient  of  nature,  and  were  too  deeply  conscious 
of  the  extent  in  which  society  is  rooted  in  nature  and  subject 
to  its  laws,  to  think  of  bringing  man  and  nature  into  conflict. 
Two  factors  conspire  in  the  later  period  of  ancient  life,  how- 
ever, to  exalt  Hterary  and  humanistic  studies.  One  is  the 
increasingly  reminiscent  and  borrowed  character  of  culture; 
the  other  is  the  political  and  rhetorical  bent  of  Roman  life. 

Greek  achievement  in  civilization  was  native;  the  civili- 
zation of  the  Alexandrians  and  Romans  was  inherited  from 
alien  sources.  Consequently  it  looked  back  to  the  records  upon 
which  it  drew,  instead  of  looking  out  directly  upon  nature  and 
society,  for  material  and  inspiration.  We  cannot  do  better 
than  quote  the  words  of  Hatch  to  indicate  the  consequences  for 
educational  theory  and  practice.  "  Greece  on  one  hand  had 
lost  political  power,  and  on  the  other  hand  possessed  in  her 
splendid  literature  an  inalienable  heritage.  ...  It  was 
natural  that  she  should  turn  to  letters.  It  was  natural  also 
that  the  study  of  letters  should  be  reflected  upon  speech.  .  .  . 
The  mass  of  men  in  the  Greek  world  tended  to  lay  stress  on 
that  acquaintance  with  the  literature  of  bygone  generations, 
and  that  habit  of  cultivated  speech,  which  has  ever  since  been 
commonly  spoken  of  as  education.  .  .  .  Our  own  comes  by 
direct  tradition  from  it.  It  set  a  fashion  which  until  recently 
has  uniformly  prevailed  over  the  entire  civilized  world.  We 
study  Hterature  rather  than  nature  because  the  Greeks  did  so. 
and  because  when  the  Romans  and  the  Roman  provincials 
resolved  to  educate  their  sons,  they  employed  Greek  teachers 
and  followed  in  Greek  paths."  ^ 

The  so-called  practical  bent  of  the  Romans  worked  in  the 
same  direction.  In  faUing  back  upon  the  recorded  ideas  of  the 
Greeks,  they  not  only  took  the  short  path  to  attaining  a  cul- 
tural development,  but  they  procured  just  the  kind  of  material 
and   method    suited    to    their    administrative   talents.     For 

1 "  The  Influence  of  Greek  Ideas  and  Usages  upon  the  Christian  Church," 
pp.  43-44. 


Physical  and  Social  Studies  327 

their  practical  genius  was  not  directed  to  the  conquest  and 
control  of  nature  but  to  the  conquest  and  control  of  men. 

Mr.  Hatch,  in  the  passage  quoted,  takes  a  good  deal  of  his- 
tory for  granted  in  saying  that  we  have  studied  Uterature 
rather  than  nature  because  the  Greeks,  and  the  Romans  whom 
they  taught,  did  so.  What  is  the  link  that  spans  the  interven- 
ing centuries  ?  The  question  suggests  that  barbarian  Europe 
but  repeated  on  a  larger  scale  and  with  increased  intensity 
the  Roman  situation.  It  had  to  go  to  school  to  Greco-Roman 
civilization ;  it  also  borrowed  rather  than  evolved  its  culture. 
Not  merely  for  its  general  ideas  and  their  artistic  presentation 
but  for  its  models  of  law  it  went  to  the  records  of  ahen  peoples. 
And  its  dependence  upon  tradition  was  increased  by  the  domi- 
nant theological  interests  of  the  period.  For  the  authorities 
to  which  the  Church  appealed  were  literatures  composed  in 
foreign  tongues.  Everything  converged  to  identify  learning 
with  linguistic  training  and  to  make  the  language  of  the  learned 
a  literary  language  instead  of  the  mother  speech. 

The  full  scope  of  this  fact  escapes  us,  moreover,  until  we 
recognize  that  this  subject  matter  compelled  recourse  to  a 
dialectical  method.  Scholasticism  frequently  has  been  used 
since  the  time  of  the  revival  of  learning  as  a  term  of  reproach. 
But  all  that  it  means  is  the  method  of  The  Schools,  or  of  the 
School  Men.  In  its  essence,  it  is  nothing  but  a  highly  effective 
systematization  of  the  methods  of  teaching  and  learning  which 
are  appropriate  to  transmit  an  authoritative  body  of  truths. 
Where  Hterature  rather  than  contemporary  nature  and  society 
furnishes  material  of  study,  methods  must  be  adapted  to 
defining,  expounding,  and  interpreting  the  received  material, 
rather  than  to  inquiry,  discovery,  and  invention.  And  at 
bottom  what  is  called  Scholasticism  is  the  whole-hearted  and 
consistent  formulation  and  application  of  the  methods  which 
are  suited  to  instruction  when  the  material  of  instruction  is 
taken  ready-made,  rather  than  as  something  which  students 
are  to  find  out  for  themselves.     So  far  as  schools  still  teach 


328  Philosophy  of  Education 

from  textbooks  and  rely  upon  the  principle  of  authority  and 
acquisition  rather  than  upon  that  of  discovery  and  inquiry, 
their  methods  are  Scholastic  —  minus  the  logical  accuracy  and 
system  of  Scholasticism  at  its  best.  Aside  from  laxity  of 
method  and  statement,  the  only  difference  is  that  geographies 
and  histories  and  botanies  and  astronomies  are  now  part  of 
the  authoritative  literature  which  is  to  be  mastered. 

As  a  consequence,  the  Greek  tradition  was  lost  in  which  a 
humanistic  interest  was  used  as  a  basis  of  interest  in  nature, 
and  a  knowledge  of  nature  used  to  support  the  distinctively 
human  aims  of  man.  Life  found  its  support  in  authority,  not 
in  nature.  The  latter  was  moreover  an  object  of  consider- 
able suspicion.  Contemplation  of  it  was  dangerous,  for  it 
tended  to  draw  man  away  from  reliance  upon  the  documents 
in  which  the  rules  of  living  were  already  contained.  More- 
over nature  could  be  known  only  through  observation ;  it  ap- 
pealed to  the  senses  —  which  were  merely  material  as  opposed 
to  a  purely  immaterial  mind.  Furthermore,  the  utilities  of  a 
knowledge  of  nature  were  purely  physical  and  secular ;  they 
connected  with  the  bodily  and  temporal  welfare  of  man, 
while  the  literary  tradition  concerned  his  spiritual  and  eternal 
well-being. 

2.  The  Modem  Scientific  Interest  in  Nature.  —  The  move- 
ment of  the  fifteenth  century  which  is  variously  termed  the 
revival  of  learning  and  the  renascence  was  characterized  by 
a  new  interest  in  man's  present  life,  and  accordingly  by  a  new 
interest  in  his  relationships  with  nature.  It  was  naturalistic, 
in  the  sense  that  it  turned  against  the  dominant  supematural- 
istic  interest.  It  is  possible  that  the  influence  of  a  return  to 
classic  Greek  pagan  literature  in  bringing  about  this  changed 
mind  has  been  overestimated.  Undoubtedly  the  change  waL 
mainly  a  product  of  contemporary  conditions.  But  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  educated  men,  filled  with  the  new  point  of  view, 
turned  eagerly  to  Greek  literature  for  congenial  sustenance 
and  reenf  orcement.     And  to  a  considerable  extent,  this  interest 


Physical  and  Social  Studies  329 

in  Greek  thought  was  not  in  literature  for  its  own  sake,  but  in 
the  spirit  it  expressed.  The  mental  freedom,  the  sense  of  the 
order  and  beauty  of  nature,  which  animated  Greek  expres- 
sion, aroused  men  to  think  and  observe  in  a  similar  untram- 
meled  fashion.  The  history  of  science  in  the  sixteenth 
century  shows  that  the  dawning  sciences  of  physical  nature 
largely  borrowed  their  points  of  departure  from  the  new 
interest  in  Greek  Uterature.  As  Windelband  has  said,  the  new 
science  of  nature  was  the  daughter  of  humanism.  The  favor- 
ite notion  of  the  time  was  that  man  was  in  microcosm  that 
which  the  universe  was  in  macrocosm. 

This  fact  raises  anew  the  question  of  how  it  was  that  nature 
and  man  were  later  separated  and  a  sharp  division  made  be- 
tween language  and  Uterature  and  the  physical  sciences.  Four 
reasons  may  be  suggested,  {a)  The  old  tradition  was  firmly 
intrenched  in  institutions.  Politics,  law,  and  diplomacy  re- 
mained of  necessity  branches  of  authoritative  Uterature,  for 
the  social  sciences  did  not  develop  until  the  methods  of  the 
sciences  of  physics  and  chemistry,  to  say  nothing  of  biology, 
were  much  further  advanced.  The  same  is  largely  true  of 
history.  Moreover,  the  methods  used  for  effective  teaching  of 
the  languages  were  well  developed;  the  inertia  of  academic 
custom  was  on  their  side.  Just  as  the  new  interest  in  Utera- 
ture, especiaUy  Greek,  had  not  been  allowed  at  first  to  find 
lodgment  in  the  scholastically  organized  universities,  so  when 
it  found  its  way  into  them  it  joined  hands  with  the  older  learn- 
ing to  minimize  the  influence  of  experimental  science.  The 
men  who  taught  were  rarely  trained  in  science ;  the  men  who 
were  scientificaUy  competent  worked  in  private  laboratories  and 
through  the  mediimi  of  academies  which  promoted  research, 
but  which  were  not  organized  as  teaching  bodies.  Finally, 
the  aristocratic  tradition  which  looked  down  upon  material 
things  and  upon  the  senses  and  the  hands  was  still  mighty. 

{h)  The  protestant  revolt  brought  with  it  an  immense  in- 
crease of  interest  in  theological  discussion  and  controversies. 


33©  Philosophy  of  Education 

The  appeal  on  both  sides  was  to  literary  documents.  Each 
side  had  to  train  men  in  ability  to  study  and  expound  the 
records  which  were  relied  upon.  The  demand  for  training  men 
who  could  defend  the  chosen  faith  against  the  other  side,  who 
were  able  to  propagandize  and  to  prevent  the  encroachments 
of  the  other  side,  was  such  that  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  by 
the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  the  linguistic  training 
of  gymnasia  and  universities  had  been  captured  by  the  re- 
vived theological  interest,  and  used  as  a  tool  of  religious 
education  and  ecclesiastical  controversy.  Thus  the  educational 
descent  of  the  languages  as  they  are  found  in  education  to-day 
is  not  direct  from  the  revival  of  learning,  but  from  its  adapta- 
tion to  theological  ends. 

(c)  The  natural  sciences  were  themselves  conceived  in  a 
way  which  sharpened  the  opposition  of  man  and  nature. 
Francis  Bacon  presents  an  almost  perfect  example  of  the  union 
of  naturalistic  and  humanistic  interest.  Science,  adopting 
the  methods  of  observation  and  experimentation,  was  to  give 
up  the  attempt  to  '  anticipate  '  nature  —  to  impose  precon- 
ceived notions  upon  her  —  and  was  to  become  her  humble 
interpreter.  In  obeying  nature  intellectually,  man  would 
learn  to  command  her  practically.  "  Knowledge  is  power." 
This  aphorism  meant  that  through  science  man  is  to  control 
nature  and  turn  her  energies  to  the  execution  of  his  own  ends. 
Bacon  attacked  the  old  learning  and  logic  as  purely  contro- 
versial, having  to  do  with  victory  in  argument,  not  with  dis- 
covery of  the  unknown.  Through  the  new  method  of  thought 
which  was  set  forth  in  his  new  logic  an  era  of  expansive  dis- 
coveries was  to  emerge,  and  these  discoveries  were  to  bear 
fruit  in  inventions  for  the  service  of  man.  Men  were  to  give 
up  their  futile,  never-finished  effort  to  dominate  one  another 
to  engage  in  the  cooperative  task  of  dominating  nature  in 
the  interests  of  humanity. 

In  the  main,  Bacon  prophesied  the  direction  of  subsequent 
progress.     But  he  *  anticipated  '  the  advance.    He  did  not 


Fhysical  and  Social  Studies  331 

see  that  the  new  science  was  for  a  long  time  to  be  worked  in 
the  interest  of  old  ends  of  human  exploitation.  He  thought 
that  it  would  rapidly  give  man  new  ends.  Instead,  it  put  at 
the  disposal  of  a  class  the  means  to  secure  their  old  ends  of 
aggrandizement  at  the  expense  of  another  class.  The  in- 
dustrial revolution  followed,  as  he  foresaw,  upon  a  revolution 
in  scientific  method.  But  it  is  taking  the  revolution  many  cen- 
turies to  produce  a  new  mind.  Feudalism  was  doomed  by  the 
applications  of  the  new  science,  for  they  transferred  power 
from  the  landed  nobility  to  the  manufacturing  centers.  But 
capitalism  rather  than  a  social  humanism  took  its  place.  Pro- 
duction and  commerce  were  carried  on  as  if  the  new  science 
had  no  moral  lesson,  but  only  technical  lessons  as  to  economies 
in  production  and  utihzation  of  savings  in  self-interest.  Natu- 
rally, this  application  of  physical  science  (which  was  the  most 
conspicuously  perceptible  one)  strengthened  the  claims  of 
professed  humanists  that  science  was  materialistic  in  its  tend- 
encies. It  left  a  void  as  to  man's  distinctively  human  interests 
which  go  beyond  making,  saving,  and  expending  money ;  and 
languages  and  literature  put  in  their  claim  to  represent  the 
moral  and  ideal  interests  of  humanity. 

{d)  Moreover,  the  philosophy  which  professed  itself  based 
upon  science,  which  gave  itself  out  as  the  accredited  repre- 
sentative of  the  net  significance  of  science,  was  either  dualistic 
in  character,  marked  by  a  sharp  division  between  mind  (char- 
acterizing man)  and  matter,  constituting  nature ;  or  else  it 
was  openly  mechanical,  reducing  the  signal  features  of  human 
Kfe  to  illusion.  In  the  former  case,  it  allowed  the  claims  of 
certain  studies  to  be  the  peculiar  consignees  of  mental  values, 
and  indirectly  strengthened  their  claim  to  superiority,  since 
human  beings  would  incline  to  regard  human  affairs  as  of  chief 
importance  at  least  to  themselves.  In  the  latter  case,  it 
called  out  a  reaction  which  threw  doubt  and  suspicion  upon 
the  value  of  physical  science,  giving  occasion  for  treating  it 
as  an  enemy  to  man's  higher  interests. 


332  Philosophy  of  Education 

Greek  and  medieval  knowledge  accepted  the  world  in  its 
qualitative  variety,  and  regarded  nature's  processes  as  having 
ends,  or  in  technical  phrase  as  teleological.  New  science  was 
expounded  so  as  to  deny  the  reality  of  all  qualities  in  real,  or 
objective,  existence.  Sounds,  colors,  ends,  as  well  as  goods 
and  bads,  were  regarded  as  purely  subjective  —  as  mere  im- 
pressions in  the  mind.  Objective  existence  was  then  treated 
as  having  only  quantitative  aspects  —  as  so  much  mass  in 
motion,  its  only  differences  being  that  at  one  point  in  space 
there  was  a  larger  aggregate  mass  than  at  another,  and  that 
in  some  spots  there  were  greater  rates  of  motion  than  at  others. 
Lacking  quahtative  distinctions,  nature  lacked  significant 
variety.  Uniformities  were  emphasized,  not  diversities ;  the 
ideal  was  supposed  to  be  the  discovery  of  a  single  mathematical 
formula  applying  to  the  whole  universe  at  once  from  which  all 
the  seeming  variety  of  phenomena  could  be  derived.  This 
is  what  a  mechanical  philosophy  means. 

Such  a  philosophy  does  not  represent  the  genuine  purport 
of  science.  It  takes  the  technique  for  the  thing  itself;  the 
apparatus  and  the  terminology  for  reality,  the  method  for  its 
subject  matter.  Science  does  confine  its  statements  to  con- 
ditions which  enable  us  to  predict  and  control  the  happening 
of  events,  ignoring  the  qualities  of  the  events.  Hence  its 
mechanical  and  quantitative  character.  But  in  leaving  them 
out  of  account,  it  does  not  exclude  them  from  reaUty,  nor 
relegate  them  to  a  purely  mental  region ;  it  only  furnishes 
means  utilizable  for  ends.  Thus  while  in  fact  the  progress  of 
science  was  increasing  man's  power  over  nature,  enabling  him ; 
to  place  his  cherished  ends  on  a  firmer  basis  than  ever  before, 
and  also  to  diversify  his  activities  almost  at  will,  the  philosophy 
which  professed  to  formulate  its  accomplishments  reduced  the 
world  to  a  barren  and  monotonous  redistribution  of  matter 
in  space.  Thus  the  immediate  effect  of  modem  science  was 
to  accentuate  the  dualism  of  matter  and  mind,  and  thereby 
to  establish  the  physical  and  the  humanistic  studies  as  two  dis- 


i 


Physical  and  Social  Studies  333 

connected  groups.  Since  the  difference  between  better  and 
worse  is  bound  up  with  the  qualities  of  experience,  any 
philosophy  of  science  which  excludes  them  from  the  genuine 
content  of  reality  is  bound  to  leave  out  what  is  most  interest- 
ing and  most  important  to  mankind. 

3.  The  Present  Educational  Problem.  —  In  truth,  ex- 
perience knows  no  division  between  human  concerns  and  a 
purely  mechanical  physical  world.  Man's  home  is  nature; 
his  purposes  and  aims  are  dependent  for  execution  upon  nat- 
ural conditions.  Separated  from  such  conditions  they  become 
empty  dreams  and  idle  indulgences  of  fancy.  From  the  stand- 
point of  human  experience,  and  hence  of  educational  en- 
deavor, any  distinction  which  can  be  justly  made  between  na- 
ture and  man  is  a  distinction  between  the  conditions  which 
have  to  be  reckoned  with  in  the  formation  and  execution  of 
our  practical  aims,  and  the  aims  themselves.  This  philosophy 
is  vouched  for  by  the  doctrine  of  biological  development 
which  shows  that  man  is  continuous  with  nature,  not  an  ahen 
entering  her  processes  from  without.  It  is  reenforced  by  the 
experimental  method  of  science  which  shows  that  knowledge 
accrues  in  virtue  of  an  attempt  to  direct  physical  energies  in 
accord  with  ideas  suggested  in  dealing  with  natural  objects  in 
behalf  of  social  uses.     Every  step  forward  in  the  social  sciences 

—  the  studies  termed  history,  economics,  poUtics,   sociology 

—  shows  that  social  questions  are  capable  of  being  intelli- 
gently coped  with  only  in  the  degree  in  which  we  employ  the 
method  of  collecting  data,  forming  hypotheses,  and  testing 
them  in  action  which  is  characteristic  of  natural  science,  and 
in  the  degree  in  which  we  utilize  in  behalf  of  the  promotion 
of  social  welfare  the  technical  knowledge  ascertained  by 
physics  and  chemistry.  Advanced  methods  of  dealing  with 
such  perplexing  problems  as  insanity,  intemperance,  poverty, 
pubhc  sanitation,  city  planning,  the  conservation  of  natural 
resources,  the  constructive  use  of  governmental  agencies  for 
furthering  the  public  good  without  weakening  personal  initia- 


334  Philosophy  of  Education 

tive,  all  illustrate  the  direct  dependence  of  our  important 
social  concerns  upon  the  methods  and  results  of  natural 
science. 

With  respect  then  to  both  himianistic  and  naturalistic 
studies,  education  should  take  its  departure  from  this  close 
interdependence.  It  should  aim  not  at  keeping  science  as 
a  study  of  nature  apart  from  Hteraturp  as  a  record  of  human 
interests,  but  at  cross-fertihzing  both  the  natural  sciences  and 
the  various  human  disciphnes  such  as  history,  hterature, 
economics,  and  poHtics.  Pedagogically,  the  problem  is  simpler 
than  the  attempt  to  teach  the  sciences  as  merp.  technical  bodies 
of  information  and  technical  forms  of  physical  manipulation, 
on  one  side;  and  to  teach  humanistic  studies  as  isolated 
subjects,  on  the  other.  For  the  latter  procedure  institutes  an 
artificial  separation  in  the  pupils'  experience.  Outside  of 
school  pupils  meet  with  natural  facts  and  principles  in  con- 
nection with  various  modes  of  human  action.  (See  ante, 
p.  36.)  In  all  the  social  activities  in  which  they  have 
shared  they  have  had  to  understand  the  material  and  pro- 
cesses involved.  To  start  them  in  school  with  a  rupture  of 
this  intimate  association  breaks  the  continuity  of  mental  de- 
velopment, makes  the  student  feel  an  indescribable  unreality 
in  his  studies,  and  deprives  him  of  the  normal  motive  for  in- 
terest in  them. 

There  is  no  doubt,  of  course,  that  the  opportunities  of 
education  should  be  such  that  all  should  have  a  chance  who 
have  the  disposition  to  advance  to  specialized  ability  in 
science,  and  thus  devote  themselves  to  its  pursuit  as  their  par- 
ticular occupation  in  Hfe.  But  at  present,  the  pupil  too  often 
has  a  choice  only  between  beginning  with  a  study  of  the  results 
of  prior  speciaHzation  where  the  material  is  isolated  from  his 
daily  experiences,  or  with  miscellaneous  nature  study,  where 
material  is  presented  at  haphazard  and  does  not  lead  anywhere 
in  particular.  The  habit  of  introducing  college  pupils  into 
segregated  scientific  subject  matter,  such  as  is  appropriate  to 


Physical  and  Social  Studies  335 

the  man  who  wishes  to  become  an  expert  in  a  given  field,  is 
carried  back  into  the  high  schools.  Pupils  in  the  latter  simply 
get  a  more  elementary  treatment  of  the  same  thing,  with  dif- 
ficulties smoothed  over  and  topics  reduced  to  the  level  of  their 
supposed  abiHty.  The  cause  of  this  procedure  lies  in  fol- 
lowing tradition,  rather  than  in  conscious  adherence  to  a 
dualistic  philosophy.  But  the  effect  is  the  same  as  if  the  pur- 
pose were  to  inculcate  an  idea  that  the  sciences  which  deal 
with  nature  have  nothing  to  do  with  man,  and  vice  versa. 
A  large  part  of  the  comparative  ineffectiveness  of  the  teach- 
ing of  the  sciences,  for  those  who  never  become  scientific 
speciahsts,  is  the  result  of  a  separation  which  is  unavoidable 
when  one  begins  with  technically  organized  subject  matter. 
Even  if  all  students  were  embryonic  scientific  speciahsts,  it  is 
questionable  whether  this  is  the  most  effective  procedure.  Con- 
sidering that  the  great  majority  are  concerned  with  the  study  of 
sciences  only  for  its  effect  upon  their  mental  habits — in  making 
them  more  alert,  more  open-minded,  more  inclined  to  tentative 
acceptance  and  to  testing  of  ideas  propounded  or  suggested,  — 
and  for  achieving  a  better  understanding  of  their  daily  environ- 
ment, it  is  certainly  ill-advised.  Too  often  the  pupil  comes 
out  with  a  smattering  which  is  too  superficial  to  be  scientific 
and  too  technical  to  be  appUcable  to  ordinary  affairs. 

The  utilization  of  ordinary  experience  to  secure  an  advance 
into  scientific  material  and  method,  while  keeping  the  latter 
connected  with  familiar  human  interests,  is  easier  to-day  than 
it  ever  was  before.  The  usual  experience  of  all  persons  in 
civilized  communities  to-day  is  intimately  associated  with  in- 
dustrial processes  and  results.  These  in  turn  are  so  many 
cases  of  science  in  action.  The  stationary  and  traction 
steam  engine,  gasoline  engine,  automobile,  telegraph  and  tele- 
phone, the  electric  motor  enter  directly  into  the  lives  of  most 
individuals.  Pupils  at  an  early  age  are  practically  acquainted 
with  these  things.  Not  only  does  the  business  occupation  of 
their  parents  depend  upon  scientific  appHcations,  but  house- 


33^  Philosophy  of  Education 

hold  pursuits,  the  maintenance  of  health,  the  sights  seen  upon  I 
the  streets,  embody  scientific  achievements  and  stimulate 
interest  in  the  connected  scientific  principles.  The  obvious 
pedagogical  starting  point  of  scientific  instruction  is  not  to 
teach  things  labeled  science,  but  to  utilize  the  familiar  occu- 
pations and  appHances  to  direct  observation  and  experiment, 
until  pupils  have  arrived  at  a  knowledge  of  some  fundamental 
principles  by  understanding  them  in  their  famiUar  practical 
workings. 

The  opinion  sometimes  advanced  that  it  is  a  derogation 
from  the  '  purity  '  of  science  to  study  it  in  its  active  incarna- 
tion, instead  of  in  theoretical  abstraction,  rests  upon  a  mis- 
understanding. As  matter  of  fact,  any  subject  is  cultural 
in  the  degree  in  which  it  is  apprehended  in  its  widest  possible 
range  of  meanings.  Perception  of  meanings  depends  upon 
perception  of  connections,  of  context.  To  see  a  scientific  fact  or 
law  in  its  human  as  well  as  in  its  physical  and  technical  context 
is  to  enlarge  its  significance  and  give  it  increased  cultural 
value.  Its  direct  economic  appKcation,  if  by  economic  is 
meant  something  having  money  worth,  is  incidental  and 
secondary,  but  a  part  of  its  actual  connections.  The  important 
thing  is  that  the  fact  be  grasped  in  its  social  connections  — 
its  function  in  life. 

On  the  other  hand,  '  humanism '  means  at  bottom  being  im- 
bued with  an  intelligent  sense  of  human  interests.  The  social 
interest,  identical  in  its  deepest  meaning  with  a  moral  interest, 
is  necessarily  supreme  with  man.  Knowledge  about  man, 
information  as  to  his  past,  familiarity  with  his  documented 
records  of  literature,  may  be  as  technical  a  possession  as  the 
accumulation  of  physical  details.  Men  may  keep  busy  in  a 
variety  of  ways,  making  money,  acquiring  facility  in  labora- 
tory manipulation,  or  in  amassing  a  store  of  facts  about  lin- 
guistic matters,  or  the  chronology  of  literary  productions.  Un- 
less such  activity  reacts  to  enlarge  the  imaginative  vision  of 
life,  it  is  on  a  level  with  the  busy  work  of  children.    It  has 


Physical  and  Social  Stiidies  337 

the  letter  without  the  spirit  of  activity.  It  readily  degener- 
ates itself  into  a  miser's  accumulation,  and  a  man  prides  him- 
self on  what  he  has,  and  not  on  the  meaning  he  finds  in  the 
afifairs  of  Hfe.  Any  study  so  pursued  that  it  increases  concern 
for  the  values  of  life,  any  study  producing  greater  sensitiveness 
to  social  well-being  and  greater  abiHty  to  promote  that  well- 
being  is  humane  study. 

The  humanistic  spirit  of  the  Greeks  was  native  and  intense, 
but  it  was  narrow  in  scope.  Everybody  outside  the  Hellenic 
circle  was  a  barbarian,  and  negligible  save  as  a  possible  enemy. 
Acute  as  were  the  social  observations  and  speculations  of 
Greek  tliinkers,  there  is  not  a  word  in  their  writings  to  indi- 
cate that  Greek  civilization  was  not  self-inclosed  and  self- 
suflScient.  There  was,  apparently,  no  suspicion  that  its  future 
was  at  the  mercy  of  the  despised  outsider.  Within  the  Greek 
community,  the  intense  social  spirit  was  limited  by  the  fact  that 
higher  culture  was  based  on  a  substratum  of  slavery  and 
economic  serfdom  —  classes  necessary  to  the  existence  of  the 
state,  as  Aristotle  declared,  and  yet  not  genuine  parts  of  it. 
The  development  of  science  has  produced  an  industrial  revolu- 
tion which  has  brought  different  peoples  in  such  close  contact 
with  one  another  through  colonization  and  commerce  that  no 
matter  how  some  nations  may  still  look  down  upon  others,  no 
country  can  harbor  the  illusion  that  its  career  is  decided 
wholly  within  itself.  The  same  revolution  has  abolished  agri- 
cultural serfdom,  and  created  a  class  of  more  or  less  organized 
factory  laborers  with  recognized  political  rights,  and  who  make 
claims  for  a  responsible  r61e  in  the  control  of  industry  — 
claims  which  receive  sympathetic  attention  from  many  among 
the  well-to-do,  since  they  have  been  brought  into  closer  connec- 
tions with  the  less  fortimate  classes  through  the  breaking 
down  of  class  barriers. 

This  state  of  affairs  may  be  formulated  by  saying  that  the 
older  humanism  omitted  economic  and  industrial  conditions 
from  its  purview.    Consequently,  it  was  one  sided.     Culture. 


338  Philosophy  of  Education 

under  such  circumstances,  inevitably  represented  the  intel- 
lectual and  moral  outlook  of  the  class  which  was  in  direct 
social  control.  Such  a  tradition  as  to  culture  is,  as  we  have 
seen  {Ante,  p.  304),  aristocratic ;  it  emphasizes  what  marks  off 
one  class  from  another,  rather  than  fundamental  common  in- 
terests. Its  standards  are  in  the  past ;  for  the  aim  is  to  pre- 
serve what  has  been  gained  rather  than  widely  to  extend  the 
range  of  culture. 

The  modifications  which  spring  from  taking  greater  account 
of  industry  and  of  whatever  has  to  do  with  making  a  living 
are  frequently  condemned  as  attacks  upon  the  culture 
derived  from  the  past.  But  a  wider  educational  outlook 
would  conceive  industrial  activities  as  agencies  for  making  in- 
tellectual resources  more  accessible  to  the  masses,  and  giving 
greater  soHdity  to  the  culture  of  those  having  superior  re- 
sources. In  short,  when  we  consider  the  close  connection 
between  science  and  industrial  development  on  the  one  hand, 
and  between  Kterary  and  aesthetic  cultivation  and  an  aristo- 
cratic social  organization  on  the  other,  we  get  light  on  the 
opposition  between  technical  scientific  studies  and  refining 
literary  studies.  We  have  before  us  the  need  of  overcoming 
this  separation  in  education  if  society  is  to  be  truly  democratic. 

Summary.  —  The  philosophic  dualism  between  man  and 
nature  is  reflected  in  the  division  of  studies  between  the  natu- 
ralistic and  the  humanistic,  with  a  tendency  to  reduce  the 
latter  to  the  literary  records  of  the  past.  This  dualism  is  not 
characteristic  (as  were  the  others  which  we  have  noted)  of 
Greek  thought.  It  arose  partly  because  of  the  fact  that  the 
culture  of  Rome  and  of  barbarian  Europe  was  not  a  native 
product,  being  borrowed  directly  or  indirectly  from  Greece, 
and  partly  because  poHtical  and  ecclesiastic  conditions  em- 
phasized dependence  upon  the  authority  of  past  knowledge  as 
that  was  transmitted  in  literary  documents. 

At  the  outset,  the  rise  of  modem  science  prophesied  a 
restoration  of  the  intimate  connection  of  nature  and  humanity, 


Physical  and  Social  Studies  339 

for  it  viewed  knowledge  of  nature  as  the  means  of  securing 
human  progress  and  well-being.  But  the  more  immediate 
applications  of  science  were  in  the  interests  of  a  class  rather 
than  of  men  in  cormnon ;  and  the  received  philosophic 
formulations  of  scientific  doctrine  tended  either  to  mark  it  off 
as  merely  material  from  man  as  spiritual  and  immaterial,  or 
else  to  reduce  mind  to  a  subjective  illusion.  In  education,  ac- 
cordingly, the  tendency  was  to  treat  the  sciences  as  a  separate 
body  of  studies,  consisting  of  technical  information  regarding 
the  physical  world,  and  to  reserve  the  older  literary  studies 
as  distinctively  humanistic.  The  account  previously  given 
of  the  evolution  of  knowledge,  and  of  the  educational  scheme  of 
studies  based  upon  it,  are  designed  to  overcome  the  separa- 
tion, and  to  secure  recognition  of  the  place  occupied  by  the 
subject  matter  of  the  natural  sciences  in  human  affairs. 


CHAPTER  XXn 

THE   INDIVIDUAL  AND  THE  WORLD 

1.  Mind  as  Purely  Individual.  —  We  have  been  concerned 
with  the  influences  which  have  effected  a  division  between  work 
and  leisure,  knowing  and  doing,  man  and  nature.  These  in- 
fluences have  resulted  in  splitting  up  the  subject  matter  of  ed- 
ucation into  separate  studies.  They  have  also  found  formu- 
lation in  various  philosophies  which  have  opposed  to  each 
other  body  and  mind,  theoretical  knowledge  and  practice, 
physical  mechanism  and  ideal  purpose.  Upon  the  philo- 
sophical side,  these  various  duaHsms  culminate  in  a  sharp  de- 
marcation of  individual  minds  from  the  world,  and  hence 
from  one  another.  While  the  connection  of  this  philosophical 
position  with  educational  procedure  is  not  so  obvious  as  is 
that  of  the  points  considered  in  the  last  three  chapters,  there 
are  certain  educational  considerations  which  correspond  to  it ; 
such  as  the  antithesis  supposed  to  exist  between  subject  matter 
(the  counterpart  of  the  world)  and  method  (the  counterpart 
of  mind) ;  such  as  the  tendency  to  treat  interest  as  something 
purely  private,  without  intrinsic  connection  with  the  material 
studied.  Aside  from  incidental  educational  bearings,  it  will 
be  shown  in  this  chapter  that  the  duaHstic  philosophy  of  mind 
and  the  world  impKes  an  erroneous  conception  of  the  relation- 
ship between  knowledge  and  social  interests,  and  between 
individuahty  or  freedom,  and  social  control  and  authority. 

The  identification  of  the  mind  with  the  individual  self 
and  of  the  latter  with  a  private  psychic  consciousness  is 
comparatively  modern.  In  both  the  Greek  and  medieval 
periods,  the  rule  was  to  regard  the  individual  as  a  channel 

340 


The  Individual  and  the  World  341 

through  which  a  universal  and  divine  intelligence  operated. 
The  individual  was  in  no  true  sense  the  knower ;  the  knower 
was  the  'Reason'  which  operated  through  him.  The  indi- 
vidual interfered  at  his  peril,  and  only  to  the  detriment 
of  the  truth.  In  the  degree  in  which  the  individual 
rather  than  reason  *  knew/  conceit,  error,  and  opinion  were 
substituted  for  true  knowledge.  In  Greek  Hfe,  observation 
was  acute  and  alert ;  and  thinking  was  free  almost  to  the  point 
of  irresponsible  speculations.  Accordingly  the  consequences 
of  the  theory  were  only  such  as  were  consequent  upon  the  lack 
of  an  experimental  method.  Without  such  a  method  indi- 
viduals could  not  engage  in  knowing,  and  be  checked  up  by 
the  results  of  the  inquiries  of  others.  Without  such  liability 
to  test  by  others,  the  minds  of  men  could  not  be  intellectually 
responsible ;  results  were  to  be  accepted  because  of  their 
aesthetic  consistency,  agreeable  quality,  or  the  prestige  of  theii 
authors.  In  the  barbarian  period,  individuals  were  in  a  still 
more  humble  attitude  to  truth ;  important  knowledge  was  sup- 
posed to  be  divinely  revealed,  and  nothing  remained  for  the 
minds  of  individuals  except  to  work  it  over  after  it  had  been  re- 
ceived on  authority.  Aside  from  the  more  consciously  philo- 
sophic aspects  of  these  movements,  it  never  occurs  to  any  one 
to  identify  mind  and  the  personal  self  wherever  beliefs  are 
transmitted  by  custom. 

In  the  medieval  period  there  was  a  religious  individualism. 
The  deepest  concern  of  life  was  the  salvation  of  the  individual 
soul.  In  the  later  middle  ages,  this  latent  individuahsm  found 
conscious  formulation  in  the  nominalistic  philosophies,  which 
treated  the  structure  of  knowledge  as  something  built  up 
within  the  individual  through  his  own  acts,  and  mental  states. 
With  the  rise  of  economic  and  poHtical  individualism  after  the 
sixteenth  century,  and  with  the  development  of  protestantism, 
the  times  were  ripe  for  an  emphasis  upon  the  rights  and  duties 
of  the  individual  in  achieving  knowledge  for  himself.  This 
led  to  the  view  that  knowledge  is  won  whoUy  through  per- 


342  Philosophy  of  Education 

sonal  and  private  experiences.  As  a  consequence,  mind,  the 
source  and  possessor  of  knowledge,  was  thought  of  as  wholly 
individual.  Thus  upon  the  educational  side,  we  find  educa- 
tional reformers,  like  Montaigne,  Bacon,  Locke,  henceforth 
vehemently  denouncing  all  learning  which  is  acquired  on 
hearsay,  and  asserting  that  even  if  behefs  happen  to  be  true, 
they  do  not  constitute  knowledge  unless  they  have  grown  up  in 
and  been  tested  by  personal  experience.  The  reaction  against 
authority  in  all  spheres  of  life,  and  the  intensity  of  the  struggle, 
against  great  odds,  for  freedom  of  action  and  inquiry,  led  to  such 
an  emphasis  upon  personal  observations  and  ideas  as  in  effect 
to  isolate  mind,  and  set  it  apart  from  the  world  to  be  known. 
This  isolation  is  reflected  in  the  great  development  of  that 
branch  of  philosophy  known  as  epistemology  —  the  theory  of 
knowledge.  The  identification  of  mind  with  the  self,  and 
the  setting  up  of  the  self  as  something  independent  and  self- 
suflicient,  created  such  a  gulf  between  the  knowing  mind  and 
the  world  that  it  became  a  question  how  knowledge  was  pos- 
sible at  all.  Given  a  subject  —  the  knower  —  and  an  object 
—  the  thing  to  be  known  —  wholly  separate  from  one  another, 
it  is  necessary  to  frame  a  theory  to  explain  how  they  get  into 
connection  with  each  other  so  that  valid  knowledge  may  result. 
This  problem,  with  the  allied  one  of  the  possibility  of  the 
world  acting  upon  the  mind  and  the  mind  acting  upon  the 
world,  became  almost  the  exclusive  preoccupation  of  philo- 
sophic thought.  The  theories  that  we  cannot  know  the  world 
as  it  really  is  but  only  the  impressions  made  upon  the  mind, 
or  that  there  is  no  world  beyond  the  individual  mind,  or  that 
knowledge  is  only  a  certain  association  of  the  mind's  own  states, 
were  products  of  this  preoccupation.  We  are  not  directly 
concerned  with  their  truth ;  but  the  fact  that  such  desperate 
solutions  were  widely  accepted  is  evidence  of  the  extent  to 
which  mind  had  been  set  over  the  world  of  reahties.  The 
increasing  use  of  the  term  '  consciousness '  as  an  equivalent 
for  mind,  in  the  supposition  that  there  is  an  inner  world  <d 


The  Individual  and  the  World  343 

conscious  states  and  processes,  independent  of  any  relation- 
ship to  nature  and  society,  an  inner  world  more  truly  and  im- 
mediately known  than  anything  else,  is  evidence  of  the  same 
fact.  In  short,  practical  individualism,  or  struggle  for  greater 
freedom  of  thought  in  action,  was  translated  into  philosophic 
subjectivism. 

2.  Individual  Mind  as  the  Agent  of  Reorganization.  —  It 
should  be  obvious  that  this  philosophic  movement  miscon- 
ceived the  significance  of  the  practical  movement.  Instead 
of  being  its  transcript,  it  was  a  perversion.  Men  were  not 
actually  engaged  in  the  absurdity  of  stri\dng  to  be  free  from 
connection  with  nature  and  one  another.  They  were  striv- 
ing for  greater  freedom  in  nature  and  society.  They  wanted 
greater  power  to  initiate  changes  in  the  world  of  things  and 
fellow  beings ;  greater  scope  of  movement  and  consequently 
greater  freedom  in  observations  and  ideas  implied  in  move- 
ment. They  wanted  not  isolation  from  the  world,  but  a  more 
intimate  connection  with  it.  They  wanted  to  form  their  be- 
liefs about  it  at  first  hand,  instead  of  through  tradition.  They 
wanted  closer  union  with  their  fellows  so  that  they  might  in- 
fluence one  another  more  effectively  and  might  combine  their 
respective  actions  for  mutual  aims. 

So  far  as  their  beliefs  were  concerned,  they  felt  that  a  great 
deal  which  passed  for  knowledge  was  merely  the  accumulated 
opinions  of  the  past,  much  of  it  absurd  and  its  correct  portions 
not  understood  when  accepted  on  authority.  Men  must 
observe  for  themselves,  and  form  their  own  theories  and 
personally  test  them.  Such  a  method  was  the  only  alterna- 
tive to  the  imposition  of  dogma  as  truth,  a  procedure  which 
reduced  mind  to  the  formal  act  of  acquiescing  in  truth. 
Such  is  the  meaning  of  what  is  sometimes  called  the  substitu- 
tion of  inductive  experimental  methods  of  knowing  for  de- 
ductive. In  some  sense,  men  had  always  used  an  inductive 
method  in  deaUng  with  their  immediate  practical  concerns. 
Architecture,  agriculture,  manufacture,  etc.,  had  to  be  based 


344  Philosophy  of  Education 

upon  observation  of  the  activities  of  natural  objects,  and  ideas 
about  such  affairs  had  to  be  checked,  to  some  extent,  by  re- 
sults. But  even  in  such  things  there  was  an  undue  rehance 
upon  mere  custom,  followed  bhndly  rather  than  understand- 
ingly.  And  this  observational-experimental  method  was 
restricted  to  these  '  practical '  matters,  and  a  sharp  distinction 
maintained  between  practice  and  theoretical  knowledge  or 
truth.  (See  Ch.  XX.)  The  rise  of  free  cities,  the  develop- 
ment of  travel,  exploration,  and  commerce,  the  evolution  of 
new  methods  of  producing  commodities  and  doing  business, 
threw  men  definitely  upon  their  own  resources.  The  reformers 
of  science  Uke  Gahleo,  Descartes,  and  their  successors,  carried 
analogous  methods  into  ascertaining  the  facts  about  nature. 
An  interest  in  discovery  took  the  place  of  an  interest  in  system- 
atizing and  *  proving  '  received  beHefs. 

A  just  philosophic  interpretation  of  these  movements  would, 
indeed,  have  emphasized  the  rights  and  responsibilities  of  the 
individual  in  gaining  knowledge  and  personally  testing  beliefs, 
no  matter  by  what  authorities  they  were  vouched  for.  But  it 
would  not  have  isolated  the  individual  from  the  world,  and 
consequently  isolated  individuals — in  theory — from  one  an- 
other. It  would  have  perceived  that  such  disconnection, 
such  nipture  of  continuity,  denied  in  advance  the  possibility 
of  success  in  their  endeavors.  As  matter  of  fact  every  in- 
dividual has  grown  up,  and  always  must  grow  up,  in  a  social  me- 
dium. His  responses  grow  intelligent,  or  gain  meaning,  simply 
because  he  Hves  and  acts  in  a  medium  of  accepted  meanings 
and  values.  (See  ante,  p.  36.)  Through  social  intercourse, 
through  sharing  in  the  activities  embodying  beliefs,  he  gradu- 
ally acquires  a  mind  of  his  own.  The  conception  of  mind  as  a 
purely  isolated  possession  of  the  self  is  at  the  very  antipodes 
of  the  truth.  The  self  achieves  mind  in  the  degree  in  which 
knowledge  of  things  is  incarnate  in  the  life  about  him ;  the 
self  is  not  a  separate  mind  building  up  knowledge  anew  on 
its  own  account. 


The  Individual  and  the  World  345 

Yet  there  is  a  valid  distinction  between  knowledge  which  is 
objective  and  impersonal,  and  thinking  which  is  subjective  and 
personal.  In  one  sense,  knowledge  is  that  which  we  take  for 
granted.  It  is  that  which  is  settled,  disposed  of,  established, 
under  control.  What  we  fully  know,  we  do  not  need  to  think 
about.  In  common  phrase,  it  is  certain,  assured.  And  this 
does  not  mean  a  mere  feeling  of  certainty.  It  denotes  not  a 
sentiment,  but  a  practical  attitude,  a  readiness  to  act  without 
reserve  or  quibble.  Of  course  we  may  be  mistaken.  What 
is  taken  for  knowledge  —  for  fact  and  truth  —  at  a  given 
time  may  not  be  such.  But  everything  which  is  assumed 
without  question,  which  is  taken  for  granted  in  our  inter- 
course with  one  another  and  nature  is  what,  at  the  given  time, 
is  called  knowledge.  Thinking  on  the  contrary,  starts,  as  we 
have  seen,  from  doubt  or  uncertainty.  It  marks  an  inquiring, 
hunting,  searching  attitude,  instead  of  one  of  mastery  and  pos- 
session. Through  its  critical  process  true  knowledge  is  revised 
and  extended,  and  our  convictions  as  to  the  state  of  thing? 
reorganized. 

Clearly  the  last  few  centuries  have  been  t)^ically  a  period 
of  revision  and  reorganization  of  beliefs.  Men  did  not  really 
throw  away  all  transmitted  behefs  concerning  the  reaUties  of 
existence,  and  start  afresh  upon  the  basis  of  their  private, 
exclusive  sensations  and  ideas.  They  could  not  have  done  so 
if  they  had  wished  to,  and  if  it  had  been  possible  general  im- 
becility would  have  been  the  only  outcome.  Men  set  out  from 
what  had  passed  as  knowledge,  and  critically  investigated  the 
grounds  upon  which  it  rested;  they  noted  exceptions;  they 
used  new  mechanical  appliances  to  bring  to  light  data  incon- 
sistent with  what  had  been  beUeved ;  they  used  their  imagina. 
tions  to  conceive  a  world  different  from  that  in  which  theif 
forefathers  had  put  their  trust.  The  work  was  a  piecemeal, 
a  retail,  business.  One  problem  was  tackled  at  a  time.  The 
net  results  of  aU  the  revisions  amounted,  however,  to  a  revolu- 
tion of  prior  conceptions  of  the  world.    What  occurred  was  a 


346  Philosophy  of  Education 

reorganization  of  prior  intellectual  habitudes,  infinitely  more 
efficient  than  a  cutting  loose  from  all  connections  would  have 
been. 

This  state  of  affairs  suggests  a  definition  of  the  r61e  of  the 
individual,  or  the  self,  in  knowledge ;  namely,  the  redirection, 
or  reconstruction  of  accepted  beliefs.  Every  new  idea,  every 
conception  of  things  differing  from  that  authorized  by  current 
belief,  must  have  its  origin  in  an  individual.  New  ideas  are 
doubtless  always  sprouting,  but  a  society  governed  by  custom 
does  not  encourage  their  development.  On  the  contrary,  it 
tends  to  suppress  them,  just  because  they  are  deviations  from 
what  is  current.  The  man  who  looks  at  things  differently 
from  others  is  in  such  a  community  a  suspect  character;  for 
him  to  persist  is  generally  fatal.  Even  when  social  censor- 
ship of  beliefs  is  not  so  strict,  social  conditions  may  fail  to 
provide  the  appliances  which  are  requisite  if  new  ideas  are  to  be 
adequately  elaborated ;  or  they  may  fail  to  provide  any  material 
support  and  reward  to  those  who  entertain  them.  Hence  they 
remain  mere  fancies,  romantic  castles  in  the  air,  or  aimless 
speculations.  The  freedom  of  observation  and  imagination 
involved  in  the  modern  scientific  revolution  were  not  easily 
secured ;  they  had  to  be  fought  for ;  many  suffered  for  their 
intellectual  independence.  But,  upon  the  whole,  modern 
European  society  first  permitted,  and  then,  in  some  fields  at 
least,  deliberately  encouraged  the  individual  reactions  which 
deviate  from  what  custom  prescribes.  Discovery,  research, 
inquiry  in  new  lines,  inventions,  finally  came  to  be  either  the 
social  fashion,  or  in  some  degree  tolerable. 

However,  as  we  have  already  noted,  philosophic  theories  of 
knowledge  were  not  content  to  conceive  mind  in  the  individual 
as  the  pivot  upon  which  reconstruction  of  beliefs  turned,  thus 
maintaining  the  continuity  of  the  individual  with  the  world  of 
nature  and  fellowmen.  They  regarded  the  individual  mind  as 
a  separate  entity,  complete  in  each  person,  and  isolated  from 
nature  and  hence  from  other  minds.     Thus  a  legitimate  in- 


The  Individual  and  the  World  347 

tellectual  individualism,  the  attitude  of  critical  revision  of 
former  beliefs  which  is  indispensable  to  progress,  was  explicitly 
formulated  as  a  moral  and  social  individualism.  When  the 
activities  of  mind  set  out  from  customary  beliefs  and  strive  to 
effect  transformations  of  them  which  will  in  turn  win  general 
conviction,  there  is  no  opposition  between  the  individual  and 
the  social.  The  intellectual  variations  of  the  individual  in 
observation,  imagination,  judgment,  and  invention  are  simply 
the  agencies  of  social  progress,  just  as  conformity  to  habit  is 
the  agency  of  social  conservation.  But  when  knowledge  is 
regarded  as  originating  and  developing  within  an  individual, 
the  ties  which  bind  the  mental  Ufe  of  one  to  that  of  his  fellows 
are  ignored  and  denied. 

When  the  social  quality  of  individualized  mental  operations 
is  denied,  it  becomes  a  problem  to  find  connectioi'S  which  will 
unite  an  individual  with  his  fellows.  Moral  individualism  is 
set  up  by  the  conscious  separation  of  different  centers  of  life. 
It  has  its  roots  in  the  notion  that  the  consciousness  of  each 
person  is  wholly  private,  a  self-inclosed  continent,  intrinsically 
independent  of  the  ideas,  wishes,  purposes  of  everybody  else. 
But  when  men  act,  they  act  in  a  common  and  public  world. 
This  is  the  problem  to  which  the  theory  of  isolated  and  inde- 
pendent conscious  minds  gave  rise :  Given  feelings,  ideas, 
desires,  which  have  nothing  to  do  with  one  another,  how  can 
actions  proceeding  from  them  be  controlled  in  a  social  or 
public  interest  ?  Given  an  egoistic  consciousness,  how  can  ac- 
tion which  has  regard  for  others  take  place? 

Moral  philosophies  which  have  started  from  such  premisses 
have  developed  four  typical  ways  of  dealing  with  the  question. 
'  {i)  One  method  represents  the  survival  of  the  older  authorita- 
tive position,  with  such  concessions  and  compromises  as  the 
progress  of  events  has  made  absolutely  inevitable.  The  de- 
viations and  departures  characterizing  an  individual  are  still 
looked  upon  with  suspicion ;  in  principle  they  are  evidences 
of  the  disturbances,  revolts,  and  corruptions  inhering  in  an 


348  Philosophy  of  Education 

individual  apart  from  external  authoritative  guidance.  In 
fact,  as  distinct  from  principle,  intellectual  individualism  is 
tolerated  in  certain  technical  regions  —  in  subjects  like  mathe- 
matics and  physics  and  astronomy,  and  in  the  technical  in- 
ventions resulting  therefrom.  But  the  appHcabiUty  of  a 
similar  method  to  morals,  social,  legal,  and  political  matters, 
is  denied.  In  such  matters,  dogma  is  still  to  be  supreme; 
certain  eternal  truths  made  known  by  revelation,  intuition,  or 
the  wisdom  of  our  forefathers  set  unpassable  limits  to  individual 
observation  and  speculation.  The  evils  from  which  society 
suffers  are  set  down  to  the  efforts  of  misguided  individuals  to 
transgress  these  boundaries.  Between  the  physical  and  the 
moral  sciences,  lie  intermediate  sciences  of  Ufe,  where  the  terri- 
tory is  only  grudgingly  yielded  to  freedom  of  inquiry  under 
the  pressure  of  accomphshed  fact.  Although  past  history  has 
demonstrated  that  the  possibilities  of  human  good  are  widened 
and  made  more  secure  by  trusting  to  a  responsibiHty  built  up 
within  the  very  process  of  inquiry,  the  *  authority '  theory  sets 
apart  a  sacred  domain  of  truth  which  must  be  protected  from 
the  inroads  of  variation  of  beliefs.  Educationally,  emphasis 
may  not  be  put  on  eternal  truth,  but  it  is  put  on  the  authority 
of  book  and  teacher,  and  individual  variation  is  discouraged. 
{ii)  Another  method  is  sometimes  termed  rationalism  or 
abstract  intellectuahsm.  A  formal  logical  faculty  is  set  up 
in  distinction  from  tradition  and  history  and  all  concrete  sub- 
ject matter.  This  faculty  of  reason  is  endowed  with  power 
to  influence  conduct  directly.  Since  it  deals  wholly  with  gen- 
eral and  impersonal  forms,  when  different  persons  act  in  ac- 
cord with  logical  findings,  their  activities  will  be  externally 
consistent.  There  is  no  doubt  of  the  services  rendered  by 
this  philosophy.  It  was  a  powerful  factor  in  the  negative  and 
dissolving  criticism  of  doctrines  having  nothing  but  tradition 
and  class  interest  behind  them;  it  accustomed  men  to  free- 
dom of  discussion  and  to  the  notion  that  behefs  had  to  be  sub- 
mitted to  criteria  of  reasonableness.     It  undermined  the  power 


The  Individual  and  the  World  340 

of  prejudice,  superstition,  and  brute  force,  by  habituating 
men  to  reliance  upon  argument,  discussion,  and  persuasion.  It 
made  for  clarity  and  order  of  exposition.  But  its  influence 
was  greater  in  destruction  of  old  falsities  than  in  the  construc- 
tion of  new  ties  and  associations  among  men.  Its  formal 
and  empty  nature,  due  to  conceiving  reason  as  something 
complete  in  itself  apart  from  subject  matter,  its  hostile  at- 
titude toward  historical  institutions,  its  disregard  of  the  in- 
fluence of  habit,  instinct,  and  emotion,  as  operative  factors 
in  Hfe,  left  it  impotent  in  the  suggestion  of  specific  aims 
and  methods.  Bare  logic,  however  important  in  arranging 
and  criticizing  existing  subject  matter,  cannot  spin  new  subject 
matter  out  of  itself.  In  education,  the  correlative  is  trust  in 
general  ready-made  rules  and  principles  to  secure  agreement, 
irrespective  of  seeing  to  it  that  the  pupil's  ideas  really  agree 
with  one  another. 

{Hi)  While  this  rationalistic  philosophy  was  developing  in 
France,  Enghsh  thought  appealed  to  the  intelligent  self- 
interest  of  individuals  in  order  to  secure  outer  unity  in  the  acts 
which  issued  from  isolated  streams  of  consciousness.  Legal 
arrangements,  especially  penal  administration,  and  govern- 
mental regulations,  were  to  be  such  as  to  prevent  the  acts  which 
proceeded  from  regard  for  one's  own  private  sensations  from 
interfering  with  the  feelings  of  others.  Education  was  to 
instill  in  individuals  a  sense  that  non-interference  with  others 
and  some  degree  of  positive  regard  for  their  welfare  were 
necessary  for  security  in  the  pursuit  of  one's  own  happiness. 
Chief  emphasis  was  put,  however,  upon  trade  as  a  means  of 
bringing  the  conduct  of  one  into  harmony  with  that  of  others. 
In  commerce,  each  aims  at  the  satisfaction  of  his  own  wants, 
but  can  gain  his  own  profit  only  by  furnishing  some  commodity 
or  service  to  another.  Thus  in  aiming  at  the  increase  of  his 
own  private  pleasurable  states  of  consciousness,  he  contrib- 
utes to  the  consciousness  of  others.  Again  there  is  no  doubt 
t^at  this  view  expressed  and  furthered  a  heightened  percep- 


35©  Philosophy  of  Education 

tion  of  the  values  of  conscious  life,  and  a  recognition  that 
institutional  arrangements  are  ultimately  to  be  judged  by  the 
contributions  which  they  make  to  intensifying  and  enlarging 
the  scope  of  conscious  experience.  It  also  did  much  to  rescue 
work,  industry,  and  mechanical  devices  from  the  contempt  in 
which  they  had  been  held  in  communities  founded  upon  the 
control  of  a  leisure  class.  In  both  ways,  this  philosophy  pro- 
moted a  wider  and  more  democratic  social  concern.  But  it 
was  tainted  by  the  narrowness  of  its  fundamental  premiss : 
the  doctrine  that  every  individual  acts  only  from  regard  for 
his  own  pleasures  and  pains,  and  that  so-called  generous  and 
sympathetic  acts  are  only  indirect  ways  of  procuring  and 
assuring  one's  own  comfort.  In  other  words,  it  made  ex- 
plicit the  consequences  inhering  in  any  doctrine  which  makes 
mental  Hfe  a  self-inclosed  thing,  instead  of  an  attempt  to  re- 
direct and  readapt  common  concerns.  It  made  union  among 
men  a  matter  of  calculation  of  externals.  It  lent  itself  to  the 
contemptuous  assertions  of  Carlyle  that  it  was  a  doctrine  of 
anarchy  plus  a  constable,  and  recognized  only  a  *  cash  nexus ' 
among  men.  The  educational  equivalents  of  this  doctrine  in 
the  uses  made  of  pleasurable  rewards  and  painful  penalties 
are  only  too  obvious. 

(«2>)  Typical  German  philosophy  followed  another  path.  It 
started  from  what  was  essentially  the  rationalistic  philosophy 
of  Descartes  and  his  French  successors.  But  while  French 
thought  upon  the  whole  developed  the  idea  of  reason  in  op- 
position to  the  religious  conception  of  a  divine  mind  residing 
in  individuals,  German  thought  (as  in  Hegel)  made  a  syn- 
thesis of  the  two.  Reason  is  absolute.  Nature  is  incarnate 
reason.  History  is  reason  in  its  progressive  unfolding  in  man. 
An  individual  becomes  rational  only  as  he  absorbs  into  himself 
the  content  of  rationality  in  nature  and  in  social  institutions. 
For  an  absolute  reason  is  not,  like  the  reason  of  rationalism, 
purely  formal  and  empty ;  as  absolute  it  must  include  all  con- 
tent within  itself.     Thus  the  real  problem  is  not  that  of  con- 


The  Individtml  and  the  World  351 

trolling  individual  freedom  so  that  some  measure  of  social 
order  and  concord  may  result,  but  of  achieving  individual 
freedom  through  developing  individual  convictions  in  accord 
with  the  universal  law  found  in  the  organization  of  the  state 
LS  objective  Reason.  While  this  philosophy  is  usually  termed 
absolute  or  objective  ideaUsm,  it  might  better  be  termed,  for 
educational  purposes  at  least,  institutional  ideaHsm.  (See 
ante,  p.  69.)  It  ideaHzed  historical  institutions  by  conceiv- 
ing them  as  incarnations  of  an  immanent  absolute  mind. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  philosophy  was  a  powerful 
influence  in  rescuing  philosophy  in  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  from  the  isolated  individualism  into  which  it 
had  fallen  in  France  and  England.  It  served  also  to  make 
the  organization  of  the  state  more  constructively  interested  in 
matters  of  public  concern.  It  left  less  to  chance,  less  to  mere 
individual  logical  conviction,  less  to  the  workings  of  private 
self-interest.  It  brought  intelligence  to  bear  upon  the  con- 
duct of  affairs ;  it  accentuated  the  need  of  nationally  organ- 
ized education  in  the  interests  of  the  corporate  state.  It 
sanctioned  and  promoted  freedom  of  inquiry  in  all  technical 
details  of  natural  and  historical  phenomena.  But  in  all  ulti- 
mate moral  matters,  it  tended  to  reinstate  the  principle  of 
authority.  It  made  for  efficiency  of  organization  more  than 
did  any  of  the  types  of  philosophy  previously  mentioned,  but 
it  made  no  provision  for  free  experimental  modification  of 
this  organization.  Political  democracy,  with  its  behef  in  the 
right  of  individual  desire  and  purpose  to  take  part  in  re- 
adapting  even  the  fundamental  constitution  of  society,  was 
foreign  to  it. 

3.  Educational  Equivalents.  —  It  is  not  necessary  to  con- 
sider in  detail  the  educational  counterparts  of  the  various 
defects  found  in  these  various  types  of  philosophy.  It  suffices 
to  say  that  in  general  the  school  has  been  the  institution 
which  exhibited  with  greatest  clearness  the  assumed  antithesis 
between  purely  individualistic  methods  of  learning  and  social 


352  Philosophy  of  Education 

action,  and  between  freedom  and  social  control.  The  an- 
tithesis is  reflected  in  the  absence  of  a  social  atmosphere  and 
motive  for  learning,  and  the  consequent  separation,  in  the  con- 
duct of  the  school,  between  method  of  instruction  and  methods 
of  government;  and  in  the  slight  opportunity  afforded  indi- 
vidual variations.  When  learning  is  a  phase  of  active  under- 
takings which  involve  mutual  exchange,  social  control  enters 
into  the  very  process  of  learning.  When  the  social  factor  is 
absent,  learning  becomes  a  carrying  over  of  some  presented 
material  into  a  purely  individual  consciousness,  and  there  is 
no  inherent  reason  why  it  should  give  a  more  socialized  direc- 
tion to  mental  and  emotional  disposition. 

There  is  tendency  on  the  part  of  both  the  upholders  and  the 
opponents  of  freedom  in  school  to  identify  it  with  absence  of 
social  direction,  or,  sometimes,  with  merely  physical  uncon- 
straint  of  movement.  But  the  essence  of  the  demand  for 
freedom  is  the  need  of  conditions  which  will  enable  an  individ- 
ual to  make  his  own  special  contribution  to  a  group  interest, 
and  to  partake  of  its  activities  in  such  ways  that  social  guid- 
ance shall  be  a  matter  of  his  own  mental  attitude,  and  not  a 
mere  authoritative  dictation  of  his  acts.  Because  what  is 
often  called  discipHne  and  '  government '  has  to  do  with  the  ex- 
ternal side  of  conduct  alone,  a  similar  meaning  is  attached,  by 
reaction,  to  freedom.  But  when  it  is  perceived  that  each  idea 
signifies  the  quality  of  mind  expressed  in  action,  the  supposed 
opposition  between  them  falls  away.  Freedom  means  essen- 
tially the  part  played  by  thinking  —  which  is  personal  —  in 
learning :  —  it  means  intellectual  initiative,  independence  in 
observation,  judicious  invention,  foresight  of  consequences, 
and  ingenuity  of  adaptation  to  them. 

But  because  these  are  the  mental  phase  of  behavior,  the 
needed  play  of  individuaUty  —  or  freedom  —  caimot  be  sepa- 
rated from  opportunity  for  free  play  of  physical  movements. 
Enforced  physical  quietude  may  be  unfavorable  to  realization 
of  a  problem,  to  undertaking  the  observations  needed  to  define 


The  Individual  and  the  World  353 

it,  and  to  performance  of  the  experiments  which  test  the  ideas 
suggested.  Much  has  been  said  about  the  importance  of 
*  self-activity '  in  education,  but  the  conception  has  too  fre- 
quently been  restricted  to  something  merely  internal  —  some- 
thing excluding  the  free  use  of  sensory  and  motor  organs. 
Those  who  are  at  the  stage  of  learning  from  symbols,  or  who  are 
engaged  in  elaborating  the  impUcations  of  a  problem  or  idea 
preliminary  to  more  carefully  thought-out  activity,  may  need 
little  perceptible  overt  activity.  But  the  whole  cycle  of  self- 
activity  demands  an  opportunity  for  investigation  and  experi- 
mentation, for  trying  out  one's  ideas  upon  things,  discovering 
what  can  be  done  with  materials  and  appUances.  And  this 
is  incompatible  with  closely  restricted  physical  activity. 

Individual  activity  has  sometimes  been  taken  as  meaning 
leaving  a  pupil  to  work  by  himself  or  alone.  Relief  from  need 
of  attending  to  what  any  one  else  is  doing  is  truly  required  to 
secure  calm  and  concentration.  Children,  like  grown  persons, 
require  a  judicious  amount  of  being  let  alone.  But  the  time, 
place,  and  amount  of  such  separate  work  is  a  matter  of  detail, 
not  of  principle.  There  is  no  inherent  opposition  between 
working  with  others  and  working  as  an  individual.  On  the 
contrary,  certain  capacities  of  an  individual  are  not  brought 
out  except  under  the  stimulus  of  associating  with  others.  That 
a  child  must  work  alone  and  not  engage  in  group  activities  in 
order  to  be  free  and  let  his  individuahty  develop,  is  a  notion 
which  measures  individuality  by  spatial  distance  and  makes 
a  physical  thing  of  it. 

Individuality  as  a  factor  to  be  respected  in  education  has  a 
double  meaning.  In  the  first  place,  one  is  mentally  an  individual 
only  as  he  has  his  own  purpose  and  problem,  and  does  his  own 
thinking.  The  phrase  *  think  for  one's  self '  is  a  pleonasm.  Un- 
less one  does  it  for  one's  self,  it  isn't  thinking.  Only  by  a  pupil's 
own  observations,  reflections,  framing  and  testing  of  suggestions 
can  what  he  already  knows  be  amplified  and  rectified.  Thinking 
<s  as  much  an  individual  matter  as  is  the  digestion  of  food 
2  A 


354  Philosophy  of  Education 

In  the  second  place,  there  are  variations  of  point  of  view,  of  ap- 
peal of  objects,  and  of  mode  of  attack,  from  person  to  person. 
When  these  variations  are  suppressed  in  the  alleged  interests  of 
uniformity,  and  an  attempt  is  made  to  have  a  single  mold  of 
method  of  study  and  recitation,  mental  confusion  and  artificial- 
ity inevitably  result.  Originahty  is  gradually  destroyed,  con- 
fidence in  one's  own  quahty  of  mental  operation  is  undermined, 
and  a  docile  subjection  to  the  opinion  of  others  is  inculcated, 
or  else  ideas  run  wild.  The  harm  is  greater  now  than  when 
the  whole  community  was  governed  by  customary  beliefs,  be- 
cause the  contrast  between  methods  of  learning  in  school  and 
those  relied  upon  outside  the  school  is  greater.  That  systematic 
advance  in  scientific  discovery  began  when  individuals  were 
allowed,  and  then  encouraged,  to  utilize  their  own  peculiarities 
of  response  to  subject  matter,  no  one  will  deny.  If  it  is  said 
in  objection,  that  pupils  in  school  are  not  capable  of  any  such 
originality,  and  hence  must  be  confined  to  appropriating  and 
reproducing  things  already  known  by  the  better  informed,  the 
reply  is  twofold,  (t)  We  are  concerned  with  originality  of 
attitude  which  is  equivalent  to  the  unforced  response  of  one's 
own  individuahty,  not  with  originality  as  measured  by  product. 
No  one  expects  the  young  to  make  original  discoveries  of  just 
the  same  facts  and  principles  as  are  embodied  in  the  sciences 
of  nature  and  man.  But  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  expect  that 
learning  may  take  place  under  such  conditions  that  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  learner  there  is  genuine  discovery.  While  im- 
mature students  will  not  make  discoveries  from  the  standpoint 
of  advanced  students,  they  make  them  from  their  own  stand- 
point, whenever  there  is  genuine  learning,  {ii)  In  the  normal 
process  of  becoming  acquainted  with  subject  matter  already 
known  to  others,  even  young  pupils  react  in  unexpected  ways. 
There  is  something  fresh,  something  not  capable  of  being  fully 
anticipated  by  even  the  most  experienced  teacher,  in  the  ways 
they  go  at  the  topic,  and  in  the  particular  ways  in  which  things 
strike  them.    Too  often  all  this  is  brushed  aside  as  irrelevaiit ; 


The  Individual  and  the  World  355 

pupils  are  deliberately  held  to  rehearsing  material  in  the  exact 
form  in  which  the  older  person  conceives  it.  The  result  is 
that  what  is  instinctively  original  in  individuality,  that  which 
marks  off  one  from  another,  goes  unused  and  undirected. 
Teaching  then  ceases  to  be  an  educative  process  for  the  teacher. 
At  most  he  learns  simply  to  improve  his  existing  technique; 
he  does  not  get  new  points  of  view ;  he  fails  to  experience  any 
intellectual  companionship.  Hence  both  teaching  and  learn- 
ing tend  to  become  conventional  and  mechanical  with  all  the 
nervous  strain  on  both  sides  therein  impHed. 

As  maturity  increases  and  as  the  student  has  a  greater  back' 
ground  of  familiarity  upon  which  a  new  topic  is  projected,  the 
scope  of  more  or  less  random  physical  experimentation  is  re- 
duced. Activity  is  defined  or  specialized  in  certain  channels. 
To  the  eyes  of  others,  the  student  may  be  in  a  position  of 
complete  physical  quietude,  because  his  energies  are  confined 
to  nerve  channels  and  to  the  connected  apparatus  of  the  eyes 
and  vocal  organs.  But  because  this  attitude  is  evidence  of 
intense  mental  concentration  on  the  part  of  the  trained  per- 
son, it  does  not  follow  that  it  should  be  set  up  as  a  model  for 
students  who  still  have  to  find  their  intellectual  way  about. 
And  even  with  the  adult,  it  does  not  cover  the  whole  circuit  of 
mental  energy.  It  marks  an  intermediate  period,  capable  of 
being  lengthened  with  increased  mastery  of  a  subject,  but 
always  coming  between  an  earher  period  of  more  general  and 
conspicuous  organic  action  and  a  later  time  of  putting  to  use 
what  has  been  apprehended. 

When,  however,  education  takes  cognizance  of  the  union  of 
mind  and  body  in  acquiring  knowledge,  we  are  not  obliged  to 
insist  upon  the  need  of  obvious,  or  external,  freedom.  It  is 
enough  to  identify  the  freedom  which  is  involved  in  teaching 
and  studying  with  the  thinking  by  which  what  a  person  already 
knows  and  beHeves  is  enlarged  and  refined.  If  attention  is 
centered  upon  the  conditions  which  have  to  be  met  in  order  to 
se-cure  a  situation  favorable  to  effective  thinking,  freedom  will 


3  $6  Philosophy  of  Educafton 

take  care  of  itself.  The  individual  who  has  a  question  which 
being  really  a  question  to  him  instigates  his  curiosity,  which 
feeds  his  eagerness  for  information  that  will  help  him  cope 
with  it,  and  who  has  at  command  an  equipment  which  will 
permit  these  interests  to  take  effect,  is  intellectually  free. 
Whatever  initiative  and  imaginative  vision  he  possesses  will 
be  called  into  play  and  control  his  impulses  and  habits.  His 
own  purposes  will  direct  his  actions.  Otherwise,  his  seeming 
attention,  his  docility,  his  memorizings  and  reproductions, 
will  partake  of  intellectual  serviHty.  Such  a  condition  of 
intellectual  subjection  is  needed  for  fitting  the  masses  into  a 
society  where  the  many  are  not  expected  to  have  aims  or  ideas 
of  their  own,  but  to  take  orders  from  the  few  set  in  authority. 
It  is  not  adapted  to  a  society  which  intends  to  be  democratic. 
Summary.  —  True  individualism  is  a  product  of  the  relaxa- 
tion of  the  grip  of  the  authority  of  custom  and  traditions  as 
standards  of  behef.  Aside  from  sporadic  instances,  like  the 
height  of  Greek  thought,  it  is  a  comparatively  modern  mani- 
festation. Not  but  that  there  have  always  been  individual 
diversities,  but  that  a  society  dominated  by  conservative  cus- 
tom represses  them  or  at  least  does  not  utilize  them  and  promote 
them.  For  various  reasons,  however,  the  new  individualism 
was  interpreted  philosophically  not  as  meaning  development 
of  agencies  for  revising  and  transforming  previously  accepted 
beliefs,  but  as  an  assertion  that  each  individual's  mind  was 
complete  in  isolation  from  everything  else.  In  the  theoret- 
ical phase  of  philosophy,  this  produced  the  epistemological 
problem  :  the  question  as  to  the  possibility  of  any  cognitive 
relationship  of  the  individual  to  the  world.  In  its  practical 
,phase,  it  generated  the  problem  of  the  possibiUty  of  a  purely 
individual  consciousness  acting  on  behalf  of  general  or  social 
interests,  —  the  problem  of  social  direction.  While  the  philos- 
ophies which  have  been  elaborated  to  deal  with  these  questions 
have  not  affected  education  directly,  the  assumptions  underlying 
them  have  found  expression  in  the  separation  frequently  made 


The  Individual  and  the  World  357 

between  study  and  government  and  between  freedom  of  indi- 
viduality and  control  by  others.  Regarding  freedom,  the 
important  thing  to  bear  in  mind  is  that  it  designates  a  mental 
attitude  rather  than  external  unconstraint  of  movements,  but 
that  this  quahty  of  mind  cannot  develop  without  a  fair  leeway 
of  movements  in  exploration,  experimentation,  appUcation,  etc. 
A  society  based  on  custom  will  utilize  individual  variations 
only  up  to  a  Umit  of  conformity  with  usage;  uniformity  is 
the  chief  ideal  within  each  class.  A  progressive  society  counts 
individual  variations  as  precious  since  it  finds  in  them  the 
means  of  its  own  growth.  Hence  a  democratic  society  must, 
in  consistency  with  its  ideal,  allow  for  intellectual  freedom 
and  the  play  of  diverse  gifts  and  interests  in  its  educational 
measures. 


CHAPTER  XXm 

VOCATIONAL   ASPECTS   OF  EDUCATION 

1.  The  Meaning  of  Vocation.  —  At  the  present  time  the 
conflict  of  philosophic  theories  focuses  in  discussion  of  the 
proper  place  and  function  of  vocational  factors  in  education. 
The  bald  statement  that  significant  differences  in  fundamental 
philosophical  conceptions  find  their  chief  issue  in  connection 
with  this  point  may  arouse  increduHty :  there  seems  to  be  toe 
great  a  gap  between  the  remote  and  general  terms  in  which 
philosophic  ideas  are  formulated  and  the  practical  and  con- 
crete details  of  vocational  education.  But  a  mental  review 
of  the  intellectual  presuppositions  underlying  the  oppositions 
in  education  of  labor  and  leisure,  theory  and  practice,  body 
and  mind,  mental  states  and  the  world,  will  show  that  they 
culminate  in  the  antithesis  of  vocational  and  cultural  educa- 
tion. Traditionally,  liberal  culture  has  been  linked  to  the 
notions  of  leisure,  purely  contemplative  knowledge  and  a 
spiritual  activity  not  involving  the  active  use  of  bodily 
organs.  Culture  has  also  tended,  latterly,  to  be  associated 
with  a  purely  private  refinement,  a  cultivation  of  certain 
states  and  attitudes  of  consciousness,  separate  from  either 
social  direction  or  service.  It  has  been  an  escape  from  the 
former,  and  a  solace  for  the  necessity  of  the  latter. 

So  deeply  entangled  are  these  philosophic  dualisms  with 
the  whole  subject  of  vocational  education,  that  it  is  necessary 
to  define  the  meaning  of  vocation  with  some  fullness  in  order 
to  avoid  the  impression  that  an  education  which  centers 
about  it  is  narrowly  practical,  if  not  merely  pecuniary.  A 
vocation  naeans  nothing  but  such  a  direction  of  life  activities 

3S8 


Vocational  Aspects  of  Education  359 

as  renders  them  perceptibly  significant  to  a  person,  because 
of  the  consequences  they  accomplish,  and  also  useful  to  his 
associates.  The  opposite  of  a  career  is  neither  leisure  nor  cul- 
ture, but  aimlessness,  capriciousness,  the  absence  of  cumula- 
tive achievement  in  experience,  on  the  personal  side,  and  idle 
display,  parasitic  dependence  upon  the  others,  on  the  social  side. 
Occupation  is  a  concrete  term  for  continuity.  It  includes  the 
development  of  artistic  capacity  of  any  kind,  of  special  scien- 
tific abihty,  of  effective  citizenship,  as  well  as  professional  and 
business  occupations,  to  say  nothing  of  mechanical  labor  or 
engagement  in  gainful  pursuits. 

We  must  avoid  not  only  limitation  of  conception  of  voca- 
tion to  the  occupations  where  immediately  tangible  commodi- 
ties are  produced,  but  also  the  notion  that  vocations  are 
distributed  in  an  exclusive  way,  one  and  only  one  to  each 
person.  Such  restricted  speciaHsm  is  impossible;  nothing 
could  be  more  absurd  than  to  try  to  educate  individuals 
with  an  eye  to  only  one  line  of  activity.  In  the  first  place, 
each  individual  has  of  necessity  a  variety  of  callings,  in  each  of 
which  he  should  be  intelligently  effective ;  and  in  the  second 
place  any  one  occupation  loses  its  meaning  and  becomes  a  rou- 
tine keeping  busy  at  something  in  the  degree  in  which  it  is 
isolated  from  other  interests,  (i)  No  one  is  just  an  artist  and 
nothing  else,  and  in  so  far  as  one  approximates  that  condition, 
he  is  so  much  the  less  developed  human  being ;  he  is  a  kind  of 
monstrosity.  He  must,  at  some  period  of  his  life,  be  a  member 
of  a  family ;  he  must  have  friends  and  companions ;  he  must 
either  support  himself  or  be  supported  by  others,  and  thus  he 
has  a  business  career.  He  is  a  member  of  some  organized 
political  unit,  and  so  on.  We  naturally  name  his  vocation 
from  that  one  of  the  callings  which  distinguishes  him,  rather 
than  from  those  which  he  has  in  common  with  all  others. 
But  we  should  not  allow  ourselves  to  be  so  subject  to  words 
as  to  ignore  and  virtually  deny  his  other  callings  when  it  comes 
to  a  consideration  of  the  vocational  phases  of  education. 


360  Philosophy  of  Education 

(ii)  As  a  man's  vocation  as  artist  is  but  the  emphatically 
specialized  phase  of  his  diverse  and  variegated  vocational 
activities,  so  his  efficiency  in  it,  in  the  humane  sense  of  effi- 
ciency, is  determined  by  its  association  with  other  callings. 
A  person  must  have  experience,  he  must  live,  if  his  artistry 
is  to  be  more  than  a  technical  accomplishment.  He  cannot 
find  the  subject  matter  of  his  artistic  activity  within  his  art ; 
this  must  be  an  expression  of  what  he  suffers  and  enjoys  in 
other  relationships  —  a  thing  which  depends  in  turn  upon 
the  alertness  and  sympathy  of  his  interests.  What  is  true 
of  an  artist  is  true  of  any  other  special  calling.  There  is 
doubtless  — •  in  general  accord  with  the  principle  of  habit  — 
a  tendency  for  every  distinctive  vocation  to  become  too 
dominant,  too  exclusive  and  absorbing  in  its  speciaKzed 
aspect.  This  means  emphasis  upon  skill  or  technical  method 
at  the  expense  of  meaning.  Hence  it  is  not  the  business  of 
education  to  foster  this  tendency,  but  rather  to  safeguard 
against  it,  so  that  the  scientific  inquirer  shall  not  be  merely 
the  scientist,  the  teacher  merely  the  pedagogue,  the  clergy- 
man merely  one  who  wears  the  cloth,  and  so  on. 

2.  The  Place  of  Vocational  Aims  in  Education.  —  Bearing 
in  mind  the  varied  and  connected  content  of  the  vocation, 
and  the  broad  background  upon  which  a  particular  calling  is 
projected,  we  shall  now  consider  education  for  the  more  dis- 
tinctive activity  of  an  individual,  i.  An  occupation  is  the 
only  thing  which  balances  the  distinctive  capacity  of  an 
individual  with  his  social  service.  To  find  out  what  one  is 
fitted  to  do  and  to  secure  an  opportunity  to  do  it  is  the  key  to 
happiness.  Nothing  is  more  tragic  than  failure  to  discover 
one's  true  business  in  Ufe,  or  to  find  that  one  has  drifted  or 
been  forced  by  circumstance  into  an  uncongenial  calling.  A 
right  occupation  means  simply  that  the  aptitudes  of  a  person 
are  in  adequate  play,  working  with  the  minimum  of  friction 
and  the  maximum  of  satisfaction.  With  reference  to  other 
members  of  a  community,  this  adequacy  pf  action  signifies, 


Vocational  Aspects  of  Ed'ucation  361 

of  course,  that  they  are  getting  the  best  service  the  person 
can  render.  It  is  generally  believed,  for  example,  that  slave 
labor  was  ultimately  wasteful  even  from  the  purely  economic 
point  of  view  —  that  there  was  not  sufficient  stimulus  to 
direct  the  energies  of  slaves,  and  that  there  was  consequent 
wastage.  Moreover,  since  slaves  were  confined  to  certain 
prescribed  callings,  much  talent  must  have  remained  un- 
available to  the  community,  and  hence  there  was  a  dead  loss. 
Slavery  only  illustrates  on  an  obvious  scale  what  happens  in 
some  degree  whenever  an  individual  does  not  find  himself 
in  his  work.  And  he  cannot  completely  find  himself  when 
vocations  are  looked  upon  with  contempt,  and  a  conventional 
ideal  of  a  culture  which  is  essentially  the  same  for  all  is  main- 
tained. Plato  (Ante,  p.  102)  laid  down  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciple of  a  philosophy  of  education  when  he  asserted  that  it 
was  the  business  of  education  to  discover  what  each  person 
is  good  for,  and  to  train  him  to  mastery  of  that  mode  of  ex- 
cellence, because  such  development  would  also  secure  the 
fulfillment  of  social  needs  in  the  most  harmonious  way.  His 
error  was  not  in  his  quaHtative  principle,  but  in  his  limited 
conception  of  the  scope  of  vocations  socially  needed ;  a  limita- 
tion of  vision  which  reacted  to  obscure  his  perception  of  the 
infinite  variety  of  capacities  found  in  different  individuals. 

2.  An  occupation  is  a  continuous  activity  having  a  purpose. 
Education  through  occupations  consequently  combines  within 
itself  more  of  the  factors  conducive  to  learning  than  any 
other  method.  It  calls  instincts  and  habits  into  play;  it  is 
a  foe  to  passive  receptivity.  It  has  an  end  in  view ;  results 
are  to  be  accompHshed.  Hence  it  appeals  to  thought;  it 
demands  that  an  idea  of  an  end  be  steadily  maintained,  so 
that  activity  cannot  be  either  routine  or  capricious.  Since 
the  movement  of  activity  must  be  progressive,  leading  from 
one  stage  to  another,  observation  and  ingenuity  are  required 
at  each  stage  to  overcome  obstacles  and  to  discover  and 
readapt  means  of  execution.    In  short,  an  occupation,  pur- 


362  Philosophy  of  Education 

sued  under  conditions  where  the  realization  of  the  activity 
rather  than  merely  the  external  product  is  the  aim,  fulfills 
the  requirements  which  were  laid  down  earHer  in  connection 
with  the  discussion  of  aims,  interest,  and  thinking.  (See 
Chapters  VIII,  X,  XII.) 

A  calling  is  also  of  necessity  an  organizing  principle  for  in- 
formation and  ideas ;  for  knowledge  and  intellectual  growth. 
It  provides  an  axis  which  runs  through  an  immense  diversity 
of  detail;  it  causes  different  experiences,  facts,  items  of  in- 
formation to  fall  into  order  with  one  another.  The  lawyer, 
the  physician,  the  laboratory  investigator  in  some  branch 
of  chemistry,  the  parent,  the  citizen  interested  in  his  own 
locality,  has  a  constant  working  stimulus  to  note  and  re- 
late whatever  has  to  do  with  his  concern.  He  unconsciously, 
from  the  motivation  of  his  occupation,  reaches  out  for  all 
relevant  information,  and  holds  to  it.  The  vocation  acts 
as  both  magnet  to  attract  and  as  glue  to  hold.  Such  organi- 
zation of  knowledge  is  vital,  because  it  has  reference  to 
needs ;  it  is  so  expressed  and  readjusted  in  action  that  it 
never  becomes  stagnant.  No  classification,  no  selection 
ind  arrangement  of  facts,  which  is  consciously  worked  out 
for  purely  abstract  ends,  can  ever  compare  in  solidity  or 
effectiveness  with  that  knit  under  the  stress  of  an  occupation ; 
in  comparison  the  former  sort  is  formal,  superficial,  and  cold. 

3.  The  only  adequate  training  for  occupations  is  training 
through  occupations.  The  principle  stated  early  in  this  book 
(see  Chapter  VI)  that  the  educative  process  is  its  own  end, 
and  that  the  only  suf&cient  preparation  for  later  responsibili- 
ties comes  by  making  the  most  of  immediately  present  Ufe, 
applies  in  full  force  to  the  vocational  phases  of  education. 
The  dominant  vocation  of  all  human  beings  at  all  times  is 
living  —  intellectual  and  moral  growth.  In  childhood  and 
youth,  with  their  relative  freedom  from  economic  stress, 
this  fact  is  naked  and  unconcealed.  To  predetermine  some 
future  occupation  for  which  education  is  to  be  a  strict  prepa- 


Vocational  Aspects  of  Education  363 

ration  is  to  injure  the  possibilities  of  present  development 
and  thereby  to  reduce  the  adequacy  of  preparation  for  a 
future  right  employment.  To  repeat  the  principle  we  have 
had  occasion  to  appeal  to  so  often,  such  training  may  develop  a 
machine-hke  skill  in  routine  lines  (it  is  far  from  being  sure 
to  do  so,  since  it  may  develop  distaste,  aversion,  and  careless- 
ness), but  it  will  be  at  the  expense  of  those  qualities  of  alert 
observation  and  coherent  and  ingenious  planning  which  make 
an  occupation  intellectually  rewarding.  In  an  autocratically 
managed  society,  it  is  often  a  conscious  object  to  prevent 
the  development  of  freedom  and  responsibiHty ;  a  few  do 
the  planning  and  ordering,  the  others  follow  directions  and 
are  deliberately  confined  to  narrow  and  prescribed  channels 
of  endeavor.  However  much  such  a  scheme  may  inure  to 
the  prestige  and  profit  of  a  class,  it  is  evident  that  it  limits 
the  development  of  the  subject  class ;  hardens  and  confines 
the  opportunities  for  learning  through  experience  of  the 
master  class,  and  in  both  ways  hampers  the  life  of  the  societ}'' 
as  a  whole.     (See  ante,  p.  304.) 

The  only  alternative  is  that  all  the  earlier  preparation 
for  vocations  be  indirect  rather  than  direct;  namely, 
through  engaging  in  those  active  occupations  which  are  in- 
dicated by  the  needs  and  interests  of  the  pupil  at  the  time. 
Only  in  this  way  can  there  be  on  the  part  of  the  educator 
and  of  the  one  educated  a  genuine  discovery  of  personal 
aptitudes  so  that  the  proper  choice  of  a  speciaKzed  pursuit 
in  later  life  may  be  indicated.  Moreover,  the  discovery  of 
capacity  and  aptitude  will  be  a  constant  process  as  long  as 
growth  continues.  It  is  a  conventional  and  arbitrary  view 
which  assumes  that  discovery  of  the  work  to  be  chosen  for 
adult  life  is  made  once  for  all  at  some  particular  date.  One 
has  discovered  in  himself,  say,  an  interest,  intellectual  and 
social,  in  the  things  which  have  to  do  with  engineering  and 
has  decided  to  make  that  his  calling.  At  most,  this  only 
blocks  out  in  outline  the  field  in  which  further  growth  is  to 


364  Philosophy  of  Education 

be  directed.  It  is  a  sort  of  rough  sketch  map  for  use  in 
direction  of  further  activities.  It  is  the  discovery  of  a  pro- 
fession  in  the  sense  in  which  Columbus  discovered  America 
when  he  touched  its  shores.  Future  explorations  of  an  in- 
definitely more  detailed  and  extensive  sort  remain  to  be  made. 
When  educators  conceive  vocational  guidance  as  something 
which  leads  up  to  a  definitive,  irretrievable,  and  complete  choice, 
both  education  and  the  chosen  vocation  are  likely  to  be  rigid, 
hampering  further  growth.  In  so  far,  the  calling  chosen  will 
be  such  as  to  leave  the  person  concerned  in  a  permanently 
subordinate  position,  executing  the  intelligence  of  others 
who  have  a  calling  which  permits  more  flexible  play  and  read- 
justment. And  while  ordinary  usages  of  language  may  not 
justify  terming  a  flexible  attitude  of  readjustment  a  choice  of 
a  new  and  further  calling,  it  is  such  in  effect.  If  even  adults 
have  to  be  on  the  lookout  to  see  that  their  calling  does  not 
shut  down  on  them  and  fossilize  them,  educators  must  cer- 
tainly be  careful  that  the  vocational  preparation  of  youth 
is  such  as  to  engage  them  in  a  continuous  reorganization  of 
aims  and  methods. 

3.  Present  Opportunities  and  Dangers.  —  In  the  past,  edu- 
cation has  been  much  more  vocational  in  fact  than  in  name, 
(t)  The  education  of  the  masses  was  distinctly  utilitarian. 
It  was  called  apprenticeship  rather  than  education,  or  else 
just  learning  from  experience.  The  schools  devoted  them- 
selves to  the  three  R's  in  the  degree  in  which  ability  to  go 
through  the  forms  of  reading,  writing,  and  figuring  were 
common  elements  in  all  kinds  of  labor.  Taking  part  in  some 
special  line  of  work,  under  the  direction  of  others,  was  the 
out-of-school  phase  of  this  education.  The  two  supplemented 
each  other ;  the  school  work  in  its  narrow  and  formal  character 
was  as  much  a  part  of  apprenticeship  to  a  calling  as  that 
explicitly  so  termed. 

{ii)  To  a  considerable  extent,  the  education  of  the  domi- 
nant classes  was  essentially  vocational  —  it  only  happened 


Vocational  Aspects  of  Education  365 

that  their  pursuits  of  ruling  and  of  enjoying  were  not  called 
professions.  For  only  those  things  were  named  vocations  or 
employments  which  involved  manual  labor,  laboring  for  a 
reward  in  keep,  or  its  commuted  money  equivalent,  or  the 
rendering  of  personal  services  to  specific  persons.  For  a 
long  time,  for  example,  the  profession  of  the  surgeon  and 
physician  ranked  almost  with  that  of  the  valet  or  barber  — 
partly  because  it  had  so  much  to  do  with  the  body,  and  partly 
because  it  involved  rendering  direct  service  for  pay  to  some 
definite  person.  But  if  we  go  behind  words,  the  business  of 
directing  social  concerns,  whether  politically  or  economically, 
whether  in  war  or  peace,  is  as  much  a  calling  as  anything 
else;  and  where  education  has  not  been  completely  under 
the  thumb  of  tradition,  higher  schools  in  the  past  have  been 
upon  the  whole  calculated  to  give  preparation  for  this  busi- 
ness. Moreover,  display,  the  adornment  of  person,  the  kind 
of  social  companionship  and  entertainment  which  give  pres- 
tige, and  the  spending  of  money,  have  been  made  into  defijiite 
callings.  Unconsciously  to  themselves  the  higher  institutions 
of  learning  have  been  made  to  contribute  to  preparation  for 
these  employments.  Even  at  present,  what  is  called  higher 
education  is  for  a  certain  class  (much  smaller  than  it  once  was) 
mainly  preparation  for  engaging  effectively  in  these  pursuits. 
In  other  respects,  it  is  largely,  especially  in  the  most  ad- 
vanced work,  training  for  the  calhng  of  teaching  and  special  re- 
search. By  a  peculiar  superstition,  education  which  haa 
to  do  chiefly  with  preparation  for  the  pursuit  of  conspicuous 
idleness,  for  teaching,  and  for  Hterary  callings,  and  for  leader- 
ship, has  been  regarded  as  non-vocational  and  even  as 
peculiarly  cultural.  The  literary  training  which  indirectly 
fits  for  authorship,  whether  of  books,  newspaper  editorials,  or 
magazine  articles,  is  especially  subject  to  this  superstition: 
many  a  teacher  and  author  writes  and  argues  in  behalf  of  a 
cultural  and  humane  education  against  the  encroachments 
of   a    specialized   practical   education,    without   recognizint' 


I 


366  Philosophy  of  Education 

that  his  own  education,  which  he  calls  liberal,  has  been 
mainly  training  for  his  own  particular  calling.  He  has  simply 
got  into  the  habit  of  regarding  his  own  business  as  essentially 
cultural  and  of  overlooking  the  cultural  possibilities  of  other 
employments.  At  the  bottom  of  these  distinctions  is  un- 
doubtedly the  tradition  which  recognizes  as  employment  only 
those  pursuits  where  one  is  responsible  for  his  work  to  a 
specific  employer,  rather  than  to  the  ultimate  employer,  the 
community. 

There  are,  however,  obvious  causes  for  the  present  conscious 
emphasis  upon  vocational  education  —  for  the  disposition 
to  make  expHcit  and  deHberate  vocational  implications 
previously  tacit,  {i)  In  the  first  place,  there  is  an  increased 
esteem,  in  democratic  communities,  of  whatever  has  to  do 
with  manual  labor,  commercial  occupations,  and  the  render- 
ing of  tangible  services  to  society.  In  theory,  men  and  women 
are  now  expected  to  do  something  in  return  for  their  support — 
intellectual  and  economic  —  by  society.  Labor  is  extolled ; 
service  is  a  much-lauded  moral  ideal.  While  there  is  still 
much  admiration  and  envy  of  those  who  can  pursue  lives  of 
idle  conspicuous  display,  better  moral  sentiment  condemns  such 
Hves.  Social  responsibility  for  the  use  of  time  and  personal 
capacity  is  more  generally  recognized  than  it  used  to  be. 

(«)  In  the  second  place,  those  vocations  which  are  specifi- 
cally industrial  have  gained  tremendously  in  importance  in 
the  last  century  and  a  half.  Manufacturing  and  cormnerce 
are  no  longer  domestic  and  local,  and  consequently  more  or 
less  incidental,  but  are  world-wide.  They  engage  the  best 
energies  of  an  increasingly  large  number  of  persons.  The 
manufacturer,  banker,  and  captain  of  industry  have  practi- 
cally displaced  a  hereditary  landed  gentry  as  the  immediate 
directors  of  social  affairs.  The  problem  of  social  readjust- 
ment is  openly  industrial,  having  to  do  with  the  relations  of 
capital  and  labor.  The  great  increase  in  the  social  importance 
of  conspicuous  industrial  processes   has  inevitably  brought 


Vocational  Aspects  of  Education  367 

to  the  front  questions  having  to  do  with  the  relation- 
ship of  schooling  to  industrial  life.  No  such  vast  social 
readjustment  could  occur  without  offering  a  challenge  to  an 
education  inherited  from  different  social  conditions,  and 
without  putting  up  to  education  new  problems. 

{Hi)  In  the  third  place,  there  is  the  fact  already  repeatedly 
mentioned :  Industry  has  ceased  to  be  essentially  an  empir- 
ical, rule-of-thumb  procedure,  handed  down  by  custom. 
Its  technique  is  now  technological :  that  is  to  say,  based  upon 
machinery  resulting  from  discoveries  in  mathematics,  physics, 
chemistry,  bacteriology,  etc.  The  economic  revolution  has 
stimulated  science  by  setting  problems  for  solution,  by 
producing  greater  intellectual  respect  for  mechanical  ap- 
pliances. And  industry  received  back  payment  from  science 
with  compound  interest.  As  a  consequence,  industrial  oc- 
cupations have  infinitely  greater  intellectual  content  and  in- 
finitely larger  cultural  possibiUties  than  they  used  to  possess. 
The  demand  for  such  education  as  will  acquaint  workers 
with  the  scientific  and  social  bases  and  bearings  of  their 
pursuits  becomes  imperative,  since  those  who  are  without 
it  inevitably  sink  to  the  role  of  appendages  to  the  machines 
they  operate.  Under  the  old  regime  all  workers  in  a  craft 
were  approximately  equals  in  their  knowledge  and  outlook. 
Personal  knowledge  and  ingenuity  were  developed  within  at 
least  a  narrow  range,  because  work  was  done  with  tools  under 
the  direct  command  of  the  worker.  Now  the  operator  has 
to  adjust  himself  to  his  machine,  instead  of  his  tool  to  his 
own  purposes.  While  the  intellectual  possibilities  of  industry 
have  multiplied,  industrial  conditions  tend  to  make  indus- 
try, for  great  masses,  less  of  an  educative  resource  than  it 
was  in  the  days  of  hand  production  for  local  markets.  The 
burden  of  realizing  the  intellectual  possibilities  inhering  in 
work  is  thus  thrown  back  on  the  school. 

{iv)  In  the  fourth  place,  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  has  be- 
come, in  science,  more  experimental,  less  dependent  upon 


\ 


368  Philosophy  of  Edtccation 

literary  tradition,  and  less  associated  with  dialectical  methods 
of  reasoning,  and  with  symbols.  As  a  result,  the  subject 
matter  of  industrial  occupation  presents  not  only  more  of  the 
content  of  science  than  it  used  to,  but  greater  opportunity 
for  familiarity  with  the  method  by  which  knowledge  is  made. 
The  ordinary  worker  in  the  factory  is  of  course  under  too 
immediate  economic  pressure  to  have  a  chance  to  produce  a 
knowledge  like  that  of  the  worker  in  the  laboratory.  But 
in  schools,  association  with  machines  and  industrial  processes 
may  be  had  under  conditions  where  the  chief  conscious  con- 
cern of  the  students  is  insight.  The  separation  of  shop  and 
laboratory,  where  these  conditions  are  fulfilled,  is  largely  con- 
ventional, the  laboratory  having  the  advantage  of  permitting 
the  following  up  of  any  intellectual  interest  a  problem  may 
suggest;  the  shop  the  advantage  of  emphasizing  the  social 
bearings  of  the  scientific  principle,  as  well  as,  with  many  pupils, 
of  stimulating  a  Hvelier  interest. 

(v)  Finally,  the  advances  which  have  been  made  in  the 
psychology  of  learning  in  general  and  of  childhood  in  partic- 
ular fall  into  fine  with  the  increased  importance  of  industry 
in  life.  For  modem  psychology  emphasizes  the  radical  im- 
portance of  primitive  unlearned  instincts  of  exploring,  ex- 
perimentation, and  *  trying  on.'  It  reveals  that  learning  is 
not  the  work  of  something  ready-made  called  mind,  but 
that  mind  itself  is  an  organization  of  original  capacities  into 
activities  having  significance.  As  we  have  already  seen 
(Ante,  p.  239),  in  older  pupils  work  is  to  educative  develop>- 
ment  of  raw  native  activities  what  play  is  for  younger  pupils. 
Moreover,  the  passage  from  play  to  work  should  be  gradual, 
not  involving  a  radical  change  of  attitude  but  carrying  into 
work  the  elements  of  play,  plus  continuous  reorganization  in 
behalf  of  greater  control. 

The  reader  will  remark  that  these  five  points  practically 
resume  the  main  contentions  of  the  previous  part  of  the  work. 
Both  practically  and  philosophicallv,  the  key  to  the  present 


Vocational  Aspects  of  Edtccat^n  369 

educational  situation  lies  in  a  gradual  reconstruction  of  school 
materials  and  methods  so  as  to  utilize  various  forms  of  occupa- 
tion typifying  social  callings,  and  to  bring  out  their  intellectual 
and  moral  content.  This  reconstruction  must  relegate  purely 
literary  methods  —  including  textbooks  —  and  dialectical 
methods  to  the  position  of  necessary  auxihary  tools  in 
the  intelligent  development  of  consecutive  and  cumulative 
activities. 

But  our  discussion  has  emphasized  the  fact  that  this  educa- 
tional reorganization  cannot  be  accomplished  by  merely  trying 
to  give  a  technical  preparation  for  industries  and  professions 
as  they  now  operate,  much  less  by  merely  reproducing  existing 
industrial  conditions  in  the  school.  The  problem  is  not  that  of 
making  the  schools  an  adjunct  to  manufacture  and  commerce, 
but  of  utilizing  the  factors  of  industry  to  make  school  life 
more  active,  more  full  of  immediate  meaning,  more  connected 
with  out-of-school  experience.  The  problem  is  not  easy 
of  solution.  There  is  a  standing  danger  that  education  will 
perpetuate  the  older  traditions  for  a  select  few,  and  efifect 
its  adjustment  to  the  newer  economic  conditions  more  or  less 
on  the  basis  of  acquiescence  in  the  untransformed,  unra- 
tionalized,  and  imsociaHzed  phases  of  our  defective  industrial 
regime.  Put  in  concrete  terms,  there  is  danger  that  voca- 
tional education  will  be  interpreted  in  theory  and  practice  as 
trade  education :  as  a  means  of  securing  technical  efficiency 
in  specialized  future  pursuits. 

Education  would  then  become  an  instrument  of  perpetuat- 
ing unchanged  the  existing  industrial  order  of  society,  in- 
itead  of  operating  as  a  means  of  its  transformation.  The 
desired  transformation  is  not  difficult  to  define  in  a  formal 
way.  It  signifies  a  society  in  which  every  person  shall  be 
occupied  in  something  which  makes  the  lives  of  others  better 
worth  living,  and  which  accordingly  makes  the  ties  which 
bind  persons  together  more  perceptible  —  which  breaks 
down  the  barriers  of  distance  between  them.     It  denote*  a 


370  Philosophy  of  Education 

state  of  affairs  in  which  the  interest  of  each  in  his  work  is 
uncoerced  and  intelligent :  based  upon  its  congeniality  to 
his  own  aptitudes.  It  goes  without  saying  that  we  are  far 
from  such  a  social  state ;  in  a  literal  and  quantitative  sense,  we 
may  never  arrive  at  it.  But  in  principle,  the  quahty  of  social 
changes  already  accomplished  lies  in  this  direction.  There 
are  more  ample  resources  for  its  achievement  now  than  ever 
there  have  been  before.  No  insuperable  obstacles,  given 
the  intelligent  will  for  its  realization,  stand  in  the  way. 

Success  or  failure  in  its  realization  depends  more  upon  the 
adoption  of  educational  methods  calculated  to  effect  the 
change  than  upon  anything  else.  For  the  change  is  essen- 
tially a  change  in  the  quality  of  mental  disposition  —  an 
educative  change.  This  does  not  mean  that  we  can  change  char- 
acter and  mind  by  direct  instruction  and  exhortation,  apart 
from  a  change  in  industrial  and  political  conditions.  Such 
a  conception  contradicts  our  basic  idea  that  character  and 
mind  are  attitudes  of  participative  response  in  social  affairs. 
But  it  does  mean  that  we  may  produce  in  schools  a  projec- 
tion in  type  of  the  society  we  should  like  to  realize,  and  by  form- 
ing minds  in  accord  with  it  gradually  modify  the  larger  and 
more  recalcitrant  features  of  adult  society. 

Sentimentally,  it  may  seem  harsh  to  say  that  the  greatest 
evil  of  the  present  regime  is  not  found  in  poverty  and  in  the 
suffering  which  it  entails,  but  in  the  fact  that  so  many  persons 
have  callings  which  make  no  appeal  to  them,  which  are  pursued 
simply  for  the  money  reward  that  accrues.  For  such  callings 
constantly  provoke  one  to  aversion,  ill  will,  and  a  desire  to 
slight  and  evade.  Neither  men's  hearts  nor  their  minds  are 
in  their  work.  On  the  other  hand,  those  who  are  not  only 
much  better  off  in  worldly  goods,  but  who  are  in  excessive, 
if  not  monopolistic,  control  of  the  activities  of  the  many 
are  shut  off  from  equality  and  generality  of  social  inter- 
course. They  are  stimulated  to  pursuits  of  indulgence  and 
display ;  they  try  to  make  up  for  the  distance  which  separates 


Vocational  Aspects  of  Education  371 

them  from  others  by  the  impression  of  force  and  superior 
possession  and  enjoyment  which  they  can  make  upon  others. 
It  would  be  quite  possible  for  a  narrowly  conceived  scheme 
of  vocational  education  to  perpetuate  this  division  in  a 
hardened  form.  Taking  its  stand  upon  a  dogma  of  social 
predestination,  it  would  assume  that  some  are  to  continue 
to  be  wage  earners  under  economic  conditions  like  the  pres- 
ent, and  would  aim  simply  to  give  them  what  is  termed  a 
trade  education  —  that  is,  greater  technical  efficiency.  Tech- 
nical proficiency  is  often  sadly  lacking,  and  is  surely  desirable 
on  all  acounts  —  not  merely  for  the  sake  of  the  production 
of  better  goods  at  less  cost,  but  for  the  greater  happiness 
found  in  work.  For  no  one  cares  for  what  one  cannot  half 
do.  But  there  is  a  great  difference  between  a  proficiency 
limited  to  immediate  work,  and  a  competency  extended 
to  insight  into  its  social  bearings;  between  efficiency  in 
carrying  out  the  plans  of  others  and  in  one  forming  one's 
own.  At  present,  intellectual  and  emotional  limitation 
characterizes  both  the  employing  and  the  employed  class. 
While  the  latter  often  have  no  concern  with  their  occupation 
beyond  the  money  return  it  brings,  the  latter's  outlook  may 
be  confined  to  profit  and  power.  The  latter  interest  gen- 
erally involves  much  greater  intellectual  initiation  and  larger 
survey  of  conditions.  For  it  involves  the  direction  and 
combination  of  a  large  number  of  diverse  factors,  while  the 
interest  in  wages  is  restricted  to  certain  direct  muscular 
movements.  But  none  the  less  there  is  a  limitation  of  intelli- 
gence to  technical  and  non-humane,  non-hberal  channels,  so 
far  as  the  work  does  not  take  in  its  social  bearings.  And  when 
the  animating  motive  is  desire  for  private  profit  or  personal 
power,  this  limitation  is  inevitable.  In  fact,  the  advantage 
in  immediate  social  sympathy  and  humane  disposition  often 
lies  with  the  economically  unfortunate,  who  have  not  expe- 
rienced the  hardening  effects  of  a  one-sided  control  of  the 
affairs  of  others. 


i 


372  Philosophy  oj  Education 

Any  scheme  for  vocational  education  which  takes  its  point 
of  departure  from  the  industrial  regime  that  now  exists, 
is  likely  to  assume  and  to  perpetuate  its  divisions  and  weak- 
nesses, and  thus  to  become  an  instrument  in  accomplishing 
the  feudal  dogma  of  social  predestination.  Those  who  are  in  a 
position  to  make  their  wishes  good,  will  demand  a  liberal, 
a  cultural  occupation,  and  one  which  fits  for  directive  power 
the  youth  in  whom  they  are  directly  interested.  To  split 
the  system,  and  give  to  others,  less  fortunately  situated,  an 
education  conceived  mainly  as  specific  trade  preparation,  is 
to  treat  the  schools  as  an  agency  for  transferring  the  older 
division  of  labor  and  leisure,  culture  and  service,  mind  and 
body,  directed  and  directive  class,  into  a  society  nominally 
democratic.  Such  a  vocational  education  inevitably  dis- 
counts the  scientifi,c  and  historic  human  connections  of  the 
materials  and  processes  dealt  with.  To  include  such  things 
in  narrow  trade  education  would  be  to  waste  time;  concern 
for  them  would  not  be  '  practical.'  They  are  reserved  for 
those  who  have  leisure  at  command  —  the  leisure  due  to 
superior  economic  resources.  Such  things  might  even  be 
dangerous  to  the  interests  of  the  controlling  class,  arousing 
discontent  or  ambitions  '  beyond  the  station  '  of  those  work- 
ing under  the  direction  of  others.  But  an  education  which 
acknowledges  the  full  intellectual  and  social  meaning  of  a 
vocation  would  include  instruction  in  the  historic  background 
of  present  conditions ;  training  in  science  to  give  intelli- 
gence and  initiative  in  dealing  with  material  and  agencies  of 
production;  and  study  of  economics,  civics,  and  poHtics, 
to  bring  the  future  worker  into  touch  with  the  problems  of 
the  day  and  the  various  methods  proposed  for  its  improve- 
ment. Above  all,  it  would  train  power  of  readaptation  to 
changing  conditions  so  that  future  workers  would  not  become 
blindly  subject  to  a  fate  imposed  upon  them.  This  ideal 
has  to  contend  not  only  with  the  inertia  of  existing  educa- 
tional traditions,  but  also  with  the  opposition  of  those  who 


Vocational  Aspects  of  Education  ^^^ 

are  intrenched  in  command  of  the  industrial  machinery,  and 
who  realize  that  such  an  educational  system  if  made  general 
would  threaten  their  abihty  to  use  others  for  their  own  ends. 

But  this  very  fact  is  the  presage  of  a  more  equitable  and 
enlightened  social  order,  for  it  gives  evidence  of  the  depend- 
ence of  social  reorganization  upon  educational  reconstruction. 
It  is  accordingly  an  encouragement  to  those  believing  in  a 
better  order  to  undertake  the  promotion  of  a  vocational 
education  which  does  not  subject  youth  to  the  demands  and 
standards  of  the  present  system,  but  which  utilizes  its  scien- 
tific and  social  factors  to  develop  a  courageous  intelligence, 
and  to  make  intelhgence  practical  and  executive. 

Summary.  —  A  vocation  signifies  any  form  of  continuous 
activity  which  renders  service  to  others  and  engages  personal 
powers  in  behalf  of  the  accomplishment  of  results.  The 
question  of  the  relation  of  vocation  to  education  brings  to  a 
focus  the  various  problems  previously  discussed  regarding 
the  connection  of  thought  with  bodily  activity ;  of  individual 
conscious  development  with  associated  Hfe;  of  theoretical 
culture  with  practical  behavior  having  definite  results ;  of 
making  a  Hvelihood  with  the  worthy  enjoyment  of  leisure. 
In  general,  the  opposition  to  recognition  of  the  vocational 
phases  of  Hfe  in  education  (except  for  the  utiHtarian  three 
R's  in  elementary  schooling)  accompanies  the  conservation 
of  aristocratic  ideals  of  the  past.  But,  at  the  present  junc- 
ture, there  is  a  movement  in  behalf  of  something  called  vo- 
cational training  which,  if  carried  into  effect,  would  harden 
these  ideas  into  a  form  adapted  to  the  existing  industrial 
regime.  This  movement  would  continue  the  traditional 
liberal  or  cultural  education  for  the  few  economically  able 
to  enjoy  it,  and  would  give  to  the  masses  a  narrow  technical 
trade  education  for  specialized  callings,  carried  on  under  the 
control  of  others.  This  scheme  denotes,  of  course,  simply  a 
perpetuation  of  the  older  social  division,  with  its  counterpart 
intellectual  and  moral  dualisms.     But  it  means  its  continua- 


374  Philosophy  of  Education 

tion  under  conditions  where  it  has  much  less  justification  for 
existence.  For  industrial  life  is  now  so  dependent  upon 
science  and  so  intimately  affects  all  forms  of  social  intercourse, 
that  there  is  an  opportunity  to  utilize  it  for  development  of 
niind  and  character.  Moreover,  a  right  educational  use  of 
it  would  react  upon  intelligence  and  interest  so  as  to  modify, 
in  connection  with  legislation  and  administration,  the  socially 
obnoxious  features  of  the  present  industrial  and  commercial 
order.  It  would  turn  the  increasing  fund  of  social  sympathy 
to  constructive  account,  instead  of  leaving  it  a  somewhat  blind 
philanthropic  sentiment.  It  would  give  those  who  engage  in 
industrial  callings  desire  and  ability  to  share  in  social  control, 
and  abiHty  to  become  masters  of  their  industrial  fate.  It 
would  enable  them  to  saturate  with  meaning  the  technical 
and  mechanical  features  which  are  so  marked  a  feature  of 
our  machine  system  of  production  and  distribution.  So  much 
for  those  who  now  have  the  poorer  economic  opportunities. 
With  the  representatives  of  the  more  privileged  portion  of  the 
community,  it  would  increase  sympathy  for  labor,  create  a 
disposition  of  mind  which  can  discover  the  culturing  elements 
in  useful  activity,  and  increase  a  sense  of  social  responsibility. 
The  crucial  position  of  the  question  of  vocational  education 
at  present  is  due,  in  other  words,  to  the  fact  that  it  con- 
centrates in  a  specific  issue  two  fundamental  questions: — • 
Whether  intelligence  is  best  exercised  apart  from  or  within 
activity  which  puts  nature  to  human  use,  and  whether  individ- 
ual culture  is  best  secured  under  egoistic  or  social  conditions. 
No  discussion  of  details  is  undertaken  in  this  chapter,  because 
this  conclusion  but  summarizes  the  discussion  of  the  previous 
chapters,  XV  to  XXII,  inclusive. 


Ore  ^iy^ttfe^ 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

PHILOSOPHY   OF   EDUCATION 

1.  A  Critical  Review.  —  Although  we  are  dealing  with  the 
philosophy  of  education,  no  definition  of  philosophy  has  yet 
been  given;  nor  has  there  been  an  exphcit  consideration  of 
the  nature  of  a  philosophy  of  education.  This  topic  is  now 
introduced  by  a  summary  account  of  the  logical  order  impHed 
in  the  previous  discussions,  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  out 
the  philosophic  issues  involved.  Afterwards  we  shall  under- 
take a  brief  discussion,  in  more  specifically  philosophical 
terms,  of  the  theories  of  knowledge  and  of  morals  implied  in 
different  educational  ideals  as  they  operate  in  practice. 

The  prior  chapters  fall  logically  into  three  parts.  I.  The 
first  chapters  deal  with  education  as  a  social  need  and  func- 
tion. Their  purpose  is  to  outline  the  general  features  of  edu- 
cation as  the  process  by  which  social  groups  maintain  their 
continuous  existence.  Education  was  shown  to  be  a  process 
of  renewal  of  the  meanings  of  experience  through  a  process  of 
transmission,  partly  incidental  to  the  ordinary  companion- 
ship or  intercourse  of  adults  and  youth,  partly  deliberately 
instituted  to  effect  social  continuity.  This  process  was  seen 
to  involve  control  and  growth  of  both  the  immature  individual 
and  the  group  in  which  he  Hves. 

This  consideration  was  formal  in  that  it  took  no  specific 
account  of  the  quality  of  the  social  group  concerned  —  the 
kind  of  society  aiming  at  its  own  perpetuation  through  educa- 
tion. The  general  discussion  was  then  specified  by  applica- 
tion to  social  groups  which  are  intentional)  /  progressive,  and 
which  aim  at  a  greater  variety  of  mutually  shared  interests 

^75 


376  Philosophy  of  Education 

in  distinction  from  those  which  aim  simply  at  the  preservation 
of  established  customs.  Such  societies  were  found  to  be 
democratic  in  quality,  because  of  the  greater  freedom  allowed 
the  constituent  members,  and  the  conscious  need  of  securing 
in  individuals  a  consciously  socialized  interest,  instead  of 
trusting  mainly  to  the  force  of  customs  operating  imder  the 
control  of  a  superior  class.  The  sort  of  education  appropriate 
to  the  development  of  a  democratic  community  was  then 
explicitly  taken  as  the  criterion  of  the  further,  more  detailed 
analysis  of  education. 

II.  This  analysis,  based  upon  the  democratic  criterion, 
was  seen  to  imply  the  ideal  of  a  continuous  reconstruction  or 
reorganizing  of  experience,  of  such  a  nature  as  to  increase  its 
recognized  meaning  or  social  content,  and  as  to  increase  the 
capacity  of  individuals  to  act  as  directive  guardians  of  this  re- 
organization. (See  Chapters  VI-VII.)  This  distinction  was 
then  used  to  outline  the  respective  characters  of  subject 
matter  and  method.  It  also  defined  their  unity,  since  method 
in  study  and  learning  upon  this  basis  is  just  the  consciously 
directed  movement  of  reorganization  of  the  subject  matter  of 
experience.  From  this  point  of  view  the  main  principles  of 
method  and  subject  matter  of  learning  were  developed 
(Chapters  XIII-XIV). 

III.  Save  for  incidental  criticisms  designed  to  illustrate 
principles  by  force  of  contrast,  this  phase  of  the  discussion 
took  for  granted  the  democratic  criterion  and  its  application  in 
present  social  life.  In  the  subsequent  chapters  (XVIII-XXIII) 
we  considered  the  present  limitations  of  its  actual  realiza- 
tion. They  were  found  to  spring  from  the  notion  that  expe- 
rience consists  of  a  variety  of  segregated  domains,  or  interests, 
each  having  its  own  independent  value,  material,  and  method, 
each  checking  every  other,  and,  when  each  is  kept  properly 
bounded  by  the  others,  forming  a  kind  of  '  balance  of  powers  ' 
in  education.  We  then  proceeded  to  an  analysis  of  the 
various   assumptions   underlying   this   segregation.     On   the 


Philosophy  of  Education  37; 

practical  side,  they  were  found  to  have  their  cause  in  the 
divisions  of  society  into  more  or  less  rigidly  marked-off  classes 
and  groups  —  in  other  words,  in  obstruction  to  full  and 
flexible  social  interaction  and  intercourse.  These  social  rup- 
tures of  continuity  were  seen  to  have  their  intellectual  formula- 
tion in  various  dualisms  or  antitheses  —  such  as  that  of  labor 
and  leisure,  practical  and  intellectual  activity,  man  and  nature, 
individuality  and  association,  culture  and  vocation.  In  this 
discussion,  we  found  that  these  different  issues  have  their 
counterparts  in  formulations  which  have  been  made  in  classic 
philosophic  systems ;  and  that  they  involve  the  cliief  problems 
of  philosophy  —  such  as  mind  (or  spirit)  and  matter,  body 
and  mind,  the  mind  and  the  world,  the  individual  and  his 
relationships  to  others,  etc.  Underlying  these  various  separa- 
tions we  found  the  fundamental  assumption  to  be  an  isola- 
tion of  mind  from  activity  involving  physical  conditions, 
bodily  organs,  material  appliances,  and  natural  objects.  Con- 
sequently, there  was  indicated  a  philosophy  which  recog- 
nizes the  origin,  place,  and  function  of  mind  in  an  activity 
which  controls  the  environment.  Thus  we  have  completed 
the  circuit  and  returned  to  the  conceptions  of  the  first  portion 
of  this  book :  such  as  the  biological  continuity  of  human 
impulses  and  instincts  with  natural  energies ;  the  dependence 
of  the  growth  of  mind  upon  participation  in  conjoint  activities 
having  a  common  purpose ;  the  influence  of  the  physical  en- 
vironment through  the  uses  made  of  it  in  the  social  medium ; 
the  necessity  of  utilization  of  individual  variations  in  desire 
and  thinking  for  a  progressively  developing  society;  the 
essential  upity  of  method  and  subject  matter ;  the  intrinsic 
continuity  of  ends  and  means;  the  recognition  of  mind  as 
thinking  which  perceives  and  tests  the  meanings  of  behavior. 
These  conceptions  are  consistent  with  the  philosophy  which 
sees  intelligence  to  be  the  purposive  reorganization,  through 
action,  of  the  material  of  experience;  and  they  are  incon- 
sistent with  each  of  the  dualistic  philosophies  mentioned. 


378  Philosophy  of  Education 

2.  The  Nature  of  Philosophy.  —  Our  further  task  is  to 
extract  and  make  explicit  the  idea  of  philosophy  implicit  in 
these  considerations.  We  have  already  virtually  described, 
though  not  defined,  philosophy  in  terms  of  the  problems  with 
which  it  deals ;  and  we  have  pointed  out  that  these  problems 
originate  in  the  conflicts  and  difficulties  of  social  Hfe.  The 
problems  are  such  things  as  the  relations  of  mind  and  matter , 
body  and  soul ;  humanity  and  physical  nature ;  the  individual 
and  the  social ;  theory  —  or  knowing,  and  practice —  or 
doing.  The  philosophical  systems  which  formulate  these 
problems  record  the  main  Hneaments  and  difficulties  of  con- 
temporary social  practice.  They  bring  to  expHcit  conscious- 
ness what  men  have  come  to  think,  in  virtue  of  the  quaUty 
of  their  current  experience,  about  nature,  themselves,  and 
the  reahty  they  conceive  to  include  or  to  govern  both. 

As  we  might  expect,  then,  philosophy  has  generally  been 
defined  in  ways  which  imply  a  certain  totahty,  generaKty. 
and  ultimateness  of  both  subject  matter  and  method.  With 
respect  to  subject  matter,  philosophy  is  an  attempt  to  com- 
prehend — that  is,  to  gather  together  the  varied  dedails  of  the 
world  and  of  life  into  a  single  inclusive  whole,  which  shall 
either  be  a  unity,  or,  as  in  the  duahstic  systems,  shall  reduce 
the  plural  details  to  a  small  number  of  ultimate  principles. 
On  the  side  of  the  attitude  of  the  philosopher  and  of  those  who 
accept  his  conclusions,  there  is  the  endeavor  to  attain  as 
unified,  consistent,  and  complete  an  outlook  upon  experience 
as  is  possible.  This  aspect  is  expressed  in  the  word  *  philos- 
ophy '  —  love  of  wisdom.  Whenever  philosophy  has  been 
taken  seriously,  it  has  always  been  assumed  that  it  signified 
achieving  a  wisdom  which  would  influence  the  conduct  of  hfe. 
Witness  the  fact  that  almost  all  ancient  schools  of  philosophy 
were  also  organized  ways  of  hving,  those  who  accepted  their 
tenets  being  committed  to  certain  distinctive  modes  of  con- 
duct ;  witness  the  intimate  connection  of  philosophy  with  the 
theology  of  the  Roman  church  in  the  middle  ages,  its  frequent 


Philosophy  of  Education  379 

association  with  religious  interests,  and,  at  national  crises, 
its  association  with  political  struggles. 

This  direct  and  intimate  connection  of  philosophy  with  an 
outlook  upon  Hfe  obviously  differentiates  philosophy  from 
science.  Particular  facts  and  laws  of  science  evidently  influence 
conduct.  They  suggest  things  to  do  and  not  do,  and  provide 
means  of  execution.  When  science  denotes  not  simply  a  report 
of  the  particular  facts  discovered  about  the  world  but  a  gen- 
eral attitude  toward  it  —  as  distinct  from  special  things  to  do 
—  it  merges  into  philosophy.  For  an  underlying  disposition 
represents  an  attitude  not  to  this  and  that  thing  nor  even 
to  the  aggregate  of  known  things,  but  to  the  considerations 
which  govern  conduct. 

Hence  philosophy  cannot  be  defined  simply  from  the  side  of 
subject  matter.  For  this  reason,  the  definition  of  such  concep- 
tions as  generality,  totality,  and  ultimateness  is  most  readily 
reached  from  the  side  of  the  disposition  toward  the  world 
which  they  connote.  In  any  literal  and  quantitative  sense, 
these  terms  do  not  apply  to  the  subject  matter  of  knowledge, 
for  completeness  and  finality  are  out  of  the  question.  The 
very  nature  of  experience  as  an  ongoing,  changing  process  for- 
bids. In  a  less  rigid  sense,  they  apply  to  science  rather  than 
to  philosophy.  For  obviously  it  is  to  mathematics,  physics, 
chemistry,  biology,  anthropology,  history,  etc.  that  we  must 
go,  not  to  philosophy,  to  find  out  the  facts  of  the  world. 
It  is  for  the  sciences  to  say  what  generalizations  are  tenable 
about  the  world  and  what  they  specifically  are.  But  when 
we  ask  what  sort  of  permanent  disposition  of  action  toward 
the  world  the  scientific  disclosures  exact  of  us  we  are  raising 
a  philosophic  question. 

From  this  point  of  view, '  totality '  does  not  mean  the  hope- 
less task  of  a  quantitative  summation.  It  means  rather  con- 
sistency of  mode  of  response  in  reference  to  the  plurality 
of  events  which  occur.  Consistency  does  not  mean  literal 
identity;    for  since  the  same  thing  does  not  happen  twice, 


380  Philosophy  of  Edtication 

an  exact  repetition  of  a  reaction  involves  some  maladjust- 
ment. Totality  means  continuity  —  the  carrying  on  of  a 
former  habit  of  action  with  the  readaptation  necessary  to  keep 
it  alive  and  growing.  Instead  of  signifying  a  ready-made 
complete  scheme  of  action,  it  means  keeping  the  balance  in  a 
multitude  of  diverse  actions,  so  that  each  borrows  and  gives 
significance  to  every  other.  Any  person  who  is  open-minded 
and  sensitive  to  new  perceptions,  and  who  has  concentra- 
tion and  responsibility  in  connecting  them  has,  in  so  far, 
a  philosophic  disposition.  One  of  the  popular  senses  of 
philosophy  is  calm  and  endurance  in  the  face  of  difficulty  and 
loss ;  it  is  even  supposed  to  be  a  power  to  bear  pain  without 
complaint.  This  meaning  is  a  tribute  to  the  influence  of  the 
Stoic  philosophy  rather  than  an  attribute  of  philosophy  in 
general.  But  in  so  far  as  it  suggests  that  the  wholeness 
characteristic  of  philosophy  is  a  power  to  learn,  or  to  extract 
meaning,  from  even  the  unpleasant  vicissitudes  of  experience 
and  to  embody  what  is  learned  in  an  ability  to  go  on  learning, 
it  is  justified  in  any  scheme.  An  analogous  interpretation 
applies  to  the  generality  and  ultimateness  of  philosophy. 
Taken  literally,  they  are  absurd  pretensions ;  they  indicate  in- 
sanity. Finality  does  not  mean,  however,  that  experience  is 
ended  and  exhausted,  but  means  the  disposition  to  penetrate 
to  deeper  levels  of  meaning — to  go  below  the  surface  and  find 
out  the  connections  of  any  event  or  object,  and  to  keep  at 
it.  In  like  manner  the  philosophic  attitude  is  general  in  the 
sense  that  it  is  averse  to  taking  anything  as  isolated;  it 
tries  to  place  an  act  in  its  context  —  which  constitutes  its 
significance. 

It  is  of  assistance  to  connect  philosophy  with  thinking  in 
its  distinction  from  knowledge.  Knowledge,  grounded  knowl- 
edge, is  science;  it  represents  objects  which  have  been 
settied,  ordered,  disposed  of  rationally.  Thinking,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  prospective  in  reference.  It  is  occasioned  by 
an  tmsettlement  and  it  aims  at  overcoming  a  disturbance^ 


Philosophy  of  Edttcation  381 

Philosophy  is  thinking  what  the  known  demands  of  us  —  what 
responsive  attitude  it  exacts.  It  is  an  idea  of  what  is  possible, 
not  a  record  of  accompHshed  fact.  Hence  it  is  hypothetical, 
like  all  thinking.  It  presents  an  assignment  of  something 
to  be  done  —  something  to  be  tried.  Its  value  lies  not  in 
furnishing  solutions  (which  can  be  achieved  only  in  action) 
but  in  defining  difficulties  and  suggesting  methods  for  dealing 
with  them.  Philosophy  might  almost  be  described  as  thinking 
which  has  become  conscious  of  itself  —  which  has  generalized 
its  place,  function,  and  value  in  experience. 

More  specifically,  the  demand  for  a  '  total '  attitude  arises 
because  there  is  the  need  of  integration  in  action  of  the 
conflicting  various  interests  in  life.  WTiere  interests  are  so 
superficial  that  they  gUde  readily  into  one  another,  or  where 
they  are  not  sufficiently  organized  to  come  into  conflict  with 
one  another,  the  need  for  philosophy  is  not  perceptible.  But 
when  the  scientific  interest  conflicts  with,  say,  the  religious, 
or  the  economic  with  the  scientific  or  aesthetic,  or  when  the 
conservative  concern  for  order  is  at  odds  with  the  progressive 
interest  in  freedom,  or  when  institutionaUsm  clashes  with 
individuality,  there  is  a  stimulus  to  discover  some  more  com- 
prehensive point  of  view  from  which  the  divergencies  may  be 
brought  together,  and  consistency  or  continuity  of  experience 
recovered.  Often  these  clashes  may  be  settled  by  an  individ- 
ual for  himseK ;  the  area  of  the  struggle  of  aims  is  Hmited  and 
a  person  works  out  his  own  rough  accommodations.  Such 
homespun  philosophies  are  genuine  and  often  adequate. 
But  they  do  not  result  in  systems  of  philosophy.  These 
arise  when  the  discrepant  claims  of  different  ideals  of  conduct 
affect  the  community  as  a  whole,  and  the  need  for  readjust- 
ment is  general. 

These  traits  explain  some  things  which  are  often  brought  as 
objections  against  philosophies,  such  as  the  part  played 
in  them  by  individual  speculation,  and  their  controversial 
diversity,  as  well  as  the  fact  that  philosophy  seems  to  be  re- 


382  Philosophy  of  Education 

pcatedly  occupied  with  much  the  same  questions  differently 
stated.  Without  doubt,  all  these  things  characterize  historic 
philosophies  more  or  less.  But  they  are  not  objections  to 
philosophy  so  much  as  they  are  to  human  nature,  and  even 
to  the  world  in  which  human  nature  is  set.  If  there  are 
genuine  uncertainties  in  Hfe,  philosophies  must  reflect  that 
uncertainty.  If  there  are  different  diagnoses  of  the  cause 
of  a  difficulty,  and  different  proposals  for  dealing  with  it; 
if,  that  is,  the  conflict  of  interests  is  more  or  less  embodied  in 
different  sets  of  persons,  there  must  be  divergent  competing 
philosophies.  With  respect  to  what  has  happened,  sufficient 
evidence  is  all  that  is  needed  to  bring  agreement  and  cer- 
tainty. The  thing  itself  is  sure.  But  with  reference  to  what 
it  is  wise  to  do  in  a  compHcated  situation,  discussion  is  inevit- 
able precisely  because  the  thing  itself  is  stiU  indeterminate. 
One  would  not  expect  a  ruling  class  Uving  at  ease  to  have  the 
same  philosophy  of  Ufe  as  those  who  were  having  a  hard 
struggle  for  existence.  If  the  possessing  and  the  dispossessed 
had  the  same  fundamental  disposition  toward  the  world,  it 
would  argue  either  insincerity  or  lack  of  seriousness.  A 
community  devoted  to  industrial  pursuits,  active  in  business 
and  commerce,  is  not  likely  to  see  the  needs  and  possibilities 
of  life  in  the  same  way  as  a  country  with  high  aesthetic  culture 
and  little  enterprise  in  turning  the  energies  of  nature  to 
mechanical  account.  A  social  group  with  a  fairly  continuous 
history  will  respond  mentally  to  a  crisis  in  a  very  different  way 
from  one  which  has  felt  the  shock  of  abrupt  breaks.  Even 
if  the  same  data  were  present,  they  would  be  evaluated  dif- 
ferently. But  the  different  sorts  of  experience  attending 
different  types  of  Hfe  prevent  just  the  same  data  from  present- 
ing themselves,  as  well  as  lead  to  a  different  scheme  of  values. 
As  for  the  similarity  of  problems,  this  is  often  more  a  matter  of 
appearance  than  of  fact,  due  to  old  discussions  being  translated 
into  the  terms  of  contemporary  perplexities.  But  in  certain 
fundamental  respects  the  same   predicaments  of    life  recur 


Philosophy  of  Education  383 

from  time  to  time  with  only  such  changes  as  are  due  to  change 
of  social  context,  including  the  growth  of  the  sciences. 

The  fact  that  philosophic  problems  arise  because  of  wide- 
spread and  widely  felt  difficulties  in  social  practice  is  disguised 
because  philosophers  become  a  speciaKzed  class  which  uses 
a  technical  language,  unlike  the  vocabulary  in  which  the 
direct  difficulties  are  stated.  But  where  a  system  becomes 
influential,  its  connection  with  a  conflict  of  interests 
calHng  for  some  program  of  social  adjustment  may  always 
be  discovered.  At  this  point,  the  intimate  connection 
between  philosophy  and  education  appears.  In  fact,  educa- 
tion offers  a  vantage  ground  from  which  to  penetrate  to  the 
human,  as  distinct  from  the  technical,  significance  of  philo- 
sophic discussions.  The  student  of  philosophy  *  in  itseK  '  is 
always  in  danger  of  taking  it  as  so  much  nimble  or  severe  in- 
tellectual exercise — as  something  said  by  philosophers  and 
concerning  them  alone.  But  when  philosophic  issues  are 
approached  from  the  side  of  the  kind  of  mental  disposition 
to  which  they  correspond,  or  the  differences  in  educational 
practice  they  make  when  acted  upon,  the  life-situations 
which  they  formulate  can  never  be  far  from  view.  If  a 
theory  makes  no  difference  in  educational  endeavor,  it  must 
be  artificial.  The  educational  point  of  view  enables  one 
to  envisage  the  philosophic  problems  where  they  arise  and 
thrive,  where  they  are  at  home,  and  where  acceptance  or 
rejection  makes  a  difference  in  practice. 

If  we  are  wilHng  to  conceive  education  as  the  process  of 
forming  fundamental  dispositions,  intellectual  and  emotional, 
toward  nature  and  fellow  men,  philosophy  may  even  be 
defined  as  the  general  theory  of  education.  Unless  a  philosophy 
is  to  remain  symbolic  —  or  verbal  —  or  a  sentimental  indul- 
gence for  a  few,  or  else  mere  arbitrary  dogma,  its  auditing  of 
past  experience  and  its  program  of  values  must  take  effect  in 
conduct.  Public  agitation,  propaganda,  legislative  and  admin- 
istrative action  are  effective  in  producing  the  chaxige  of  di»- 


384  Philosophy  of  Education 

position  which  a  philosophy  indicates  as  desirable,  but  only 
in  the  degree  in  which  they  are  educative  —  that  is  to  say,  in 
the  degree  in  which  they  modify  mental  and  moral  attitudes. 
Ajid  at  the  best,  such  methods  are  compromised  by  the  fact 
they  are  used  with  those  whose  habits  are  already  largely 
set,  while  education  of  youth  has  a  fairer  and  freer  field  of 
operation.  On  the  other  side,  the  business  of  schooling  tends 
to  become  a  routine  empirical  affair  unless  its  aims  and 
methods  are  animated  by  such  a  broad  and  sympathetic  sur- 
vey of  its  place  in  contemporary  life  as  it  is  the  business  of 
philosophy  to  provide. 

Positive  science  always  impHes  practically  the  ends  which 
the  community  is  concerned  to  achieve.  Isolated  from  such 
ends,  it  is  matter  of  indifference  whether  its  disclosures  are 
used  to  cure  disease  or  to  spread  it ;  to  increase  the  means  of 
sustenance  of  Hfe  or  to  manufacture  war  material  to  wipe  life 
out.  If  society  is  interested  in  one  of  these  things  rather  than 
another,  science  shows  the  way  of  attainment.  Philosophy 
thus  has  a  double  task :  that  of  criticizing  existing  aims  with  re- 
spect to  the  existing  state  of  science,  pointing  out  values  which 
have  become  obsolete  with  the  command  of  new  resources, 
showing  what  values  are  merely  sentimental  because  there 
are  no  means  for  their  realization ;  and  also  that  of  interpreting 
the  results  of  specialized  science  in  their  bearing  on  future 
social  endeavor.  It  is  impossible  that  it  should  have  any 
success  in  these  tasks  without  educational  equivalents  as  to 
what  to  do  and  what  not  to  do.  For  philosophic  theory  has 
no  Alav"^ din's  lamp  to  summon  into  immediate  existence  the 
values  which  it  intellectually  constructs.  In  the  mechanical 
arts,  the  sciences  become  methods  of  managing  things  so  as 
to  utilize  their  energies  for  recognized  aims.  By  the  educative 
arts  philosophy  may  generate  methods  of  utiUzing  the  energies 
of  human  beings  in  accord  with  serious  and  thoughtful 
concept'ons  of  life.  Education  is  the  laboratory  in  which 
philosophic  distinctions  become  concrete  and  are  tested. 


Philosophy  of  Education  385 

It  is  suggestive  that  European  philosophy  originated 
(among  the  Athenians)  under  the  direct  pressure  of  educational 
questions.  The  earher  history  of  philosophy,  developed  by 
the  Greeks  in  Asia  Minor  and  Italy,  so  far  as  its  range  of  topics 
is  concerned,  is  mainly  a  chapter  in  the  history  of  science 
rather  than  of  philosophy  as  that  word  is  understood  to-day. 
It  had  nature  for  its  subject,  and  speculated  as  to  how  things 
are  made  and  changed.  Later  the  travehng  teachers,  known 
as  the  Sophists,  began  to  apply  the  results  and  the  methods  of 
the  natural  philosophers  to  human  conduct. 

When  the  Sophists,  the  first  body  of  professional  educators  in 
Europe,  instructed  the  youth  in  virtue,  the  poHtical  arts,  and 
the  management  of  city  and  household,  philosophy  began  to 
deal  with  the  relation  of  the  individual  to  the  universal,  to  some 
comprehensive  class,  or  to  some  group ;  the  relation  of  man 
and  nature,  of  tradition  and  reflection,  of  knowledge  and 
action.  Can  virtue,  approved  excellence  in  any  line,  be 
learned,  they  asked?  What  is  learning?  It  has  to  do  with 
knowledge.  What,  then,  is  knowledge  ?  How  is  it  achieved  ? 
Through  the  senses,  or  by  apprenticeship  in  some  form  of 
doing,  or  by  reason  that  has  undergone  a  preliminary  logical 
discipline?  Since  learning  is  coming  to  know,  it  involves 
a  passage  from  ignorance  to  wisdom,  from  privation  to  full- 
ness, from  defect  to  perfection,  from  non-being  to  being,  in 
the  Greek  way  of  putting  it.  How  is  such  a  transition  pos- 
sible? Is  change,  becoming,  development  really  possible 
and  if  so,  how?  And  supposing  such  questions  answered, 
what  is  the  relation  of  instruction,  of  knowledge,  to  virtue? 

This  last  question  led  to  opening  the  problem  of  the  relation 
of  reason  to  action,  of  theory  to  practice,  since  virtue  clearly 
dwelt  in  action.  Was  not  knowing,  the  activity  of  reason, 
the  noblest  attribute  of  man?  And  consequently  was  not 
purely  intellectual  activity  itself  the  highest  of  aU  excellences, 
compared  with  which  the  virtues  of  neighborliness  and  the 
citizen's  Hf e  were  secondary  ?    Or,  on  the  other  hand,  was  the 


386  Philosophy  of  Education 

vaunted  intellectual  knowledge  more  than  empty  and  vain 
pretense,  demoralizing  to  character  and  destructive  of  the 
social  ties  that  bound  men  together  in  their  community  Hfe? 
Was  not  the  only  true,  because  the  only  moral,  life  gained 
through  obedient  habituation  to  the  customary  practices  of 
the  community?  And  was  not  the  new  education  an  enemy 
to  good  citizenship,  because  it  set  up  a  rival  standard  to  the 
established  traditions  of  the  community? 

In  the  course  of  two  or  three  generations  such  questions 
were  cut  loose  from  their  original  practical  bearing  upon 
education  and  were  discussed  on  their  own  account ;  that  is, 
as  matters  of  philosophy  as  an  independent  branch  of  inquiry. 
But  the  fact  that  the  stream  of  European  philosophical 
thought  arose  as  a  theory  of  educational  procedure  remains 
an  eloquent  witness  to  the  intimate  connection  of  philosophy 
and  education.  "  Philosophy  of  education  "  is  not  an  exter- 
nal application  of  ready-made  ideas  to  a  system  of  practice 
having  a  radically  different  origin  and  purpose :  it  is  only  an 
expUcit  formulation  of  the  problems  of  the  formation  of 
right  mental  and  moral  habitudes  in  respect  to  the  difficulties 
of  contemporary  social  hfe.  The  most  penetrating  definition 
of  philosophy  which  can  be  given  is,  then,  that  it  is  the  theory 
of  education  in  its  most  general  phases. 

The  reconstruction  of  philosophy,  of  education,  and  of  social 
ideals  and  methods  thus  go  hand  in  hand.  If  there  is  especial 
need  of  educational  reconstruction  at  the  present  time,  if  this 
need  makes  urgent  a  reconsideration  of  the  basic  ideas  of  tra- 
ditional philosophic  systems,  it  is  because  of  the  thoroughgoing 
change  in  social  life  accompanying  the  advance  of  science,  the 
industrial  revolution,  and  the  development  of  democracy. 
Such  practical  changes  cannot  take  place  without  demanding 
an  educational  re-formation  to  meet  them,  and  without 
leading  men  to  ask  what  ideas  and  ideals  are  implicit  in  these 
"«ocial  changes,  and  what  revisions  they  require  of  the  ideas 
jud  ideals  which  are  inherited  from  older  and  unlike  cultures. 


Philosophy  of  Education  387 

Incidentally  throughout  the  whole  book,  explicitly  in  the  last 
few  chapters,  we  have  been  dealing  with  just  these  questions 
as  they  affect  the  relationship  of  mind  and  body,  theory  and 
practice,  man  and  nature,  the  individual  and  social,  etc.  In 
our  concluding  chapters  we  shall  sum  up  the  prior  discussions 
with  respect  first  to  the  philosophy  of  knowledge,  and  then  to 
the  philosophy  of  morals. 

Summary.  —  After  a  review  designed  to  bring  out  the 
philosophic  issues  implicit  in  the  previous  discussions,  philos- 
ophy was  defined  as  the  generalized  theory  of  education. 
Philosophy  was  stated  to  be  a  form  of  thinking,  which,  like 
all  thinking,  finds  its  origin  in  what  is  uncertain  in  the  subject 
matter  of  experience,  which  aims  to  locate  the  nature  of  the 
perplexity  and  to  frame  hypotheses  for  its  clearing  up  to  be 
tested  in  action.  Philosophic  thinking  has  for  its  differentia 
the  fact  that  the  uncertainties  with  which  it  deals  are  found 
in  widespread  social  conditions  and  aims,  consisting  in  a 
conflict  of  organized  interests  and  institutional  claims.  Since 
the  only  way  of  bringing  about  a  harmonious  readjustment  of 
the  opposed  tendencies  is  through  a  modification  of  emo- 
tional and  intellectual  disposition,  philosophy  is  at  once  an 
explicit  formulation  of  the  various  interests  of  life  and  a  pro- 
pounding of  points  of  view  and  methods  through  which  a 
better  balance  of  interests  may  be  effected.  Since  education 
is  the  process  through  which  the  needed  transformation  may 
be  accomplished  and  not  remain  a  mere  hypothesis  as  to 
what  is  desirable,  we  reach  a  justification  of  the  statement 
that  philosophy  is  the  theory  of  education  as  a  deliberately 
conducted  practice. 


i 


CHAPTER  XXV 


THEORIES   OF   KNOWLEDGE 


1.   Continuity  versus  Dualism.  —  A  number  of  theories  of 

knowing  have  been  criticized  in  the  previous  pages.  In  spite 
of  their  differences  from  one  another,  they  all  agree  in  one 
fundamental  respect  which  contrasts  with  the  theory  which 
has  been  positively  advanced.  The  latter  assumes  continuity; 
the  former  state  or  imply  certain  basic  divisions,  separations, 
or  antitheses,  technically  called  dualisms.  The  origin  of 
these  divisions  we  have  found  in  the  hard  and  fast  walls  which 
mark  off  social  groups  and  classes  within  a  group :  like  those 
between  rich  and  poor,  men  and  women,  noble  and  baseborn, 
ruler  and  ruled.  These  barriers  mean  absence  of  fluent  and 
free  intercourse.  This  absence  is  equivalent  to  the  setting  up 
of  different  types  of  Hfe-experience,  each  with  isolated  subject 
matter,  aim,  and  standard  of  values.  Every  such  social  condi- 
tion must  be  formulated  in  a  duaHstic  philosophy,  if  philosophy 
is  to  be  a  sincere  account  of  experience.  When  it  gets  beyond 
dualism  —  as  many  philosophies  do  in  form  —  it  can  only  be 
by  appeal  to  something  higher  than  anything  found  in  ex- 
perience, by  a  flight  to  some  transcendental  realm.  And  in 
denying  duahty  in  name  such  theories  restore  it  in  fact,  for 
they  end  in  a  division  between  things  of  this  world  as  mere 
appearances  and  an  inaccessible  essence  of  reality. 

So  far  as  these  divisions  persist  and  others  are  added  to 
them,  each  leaves  its  mark  upon  the  educational  system,  until 
the  scheme  of  education,  taken  as  a  whole,  is  a  deposit  of 
various  purposes  and  procedures.  The  outcome  is  that  kind 
of  check  and  balance  of  segregated  factors  and  values  which 

5&S 


Theories  of  Knowledge  389 

has  been  described.  (See  Chapter  XVIII.)  The  present  dis- 
cussion is  simply  a  formulation,  in  the  terminology  of  philos- 
ophy, of  various  antithetical  conceptions  involved  in  the 
theory  of  knowing. 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  the  opposition  of  empirical 
and  higher  rational  knowing.  The  first  is  connected  with 
everyday  affairs,  serves  the  purposes  of  the  ordinary  individual 
who  has  no  specialized  intellectual  pursuit,  and  brings  his 
wants  into  some  kind  of  working  connection  with  the  im- 
mediate environment.  Such  knowing  is  depreciated,  if  not 
despised,  as  purely  utiUtarian,  lacking  in  cultural  significance. 
Rational  knowledge  is  supposed  to  be  something  which 
touches  reaHty  in  ultimate,  intellectual  fashion;  to  be  pur- 
sued for  its  own  sake  and  properly  to  terminate  in  purely 
theoretical  insight,  not  debased  by  application  in  behavior. 
"Socially,  the  distinction  corresponds  to  that  of  the  intelli- 
gence used  by  the  working  classes  and  that  used  by  a  learned 
class  remote  from  concern  with  the  means  of  living. 

Philosophically,  the  difference  turns  about  the  distinction 
of  the  particular  and  universal.  Experience  is  an  aggregate 
of  more  or  less  isolated  particulars,  acquaintance  with  each  of 
which  must  be  separately  made.  Reason  deals  with  univer- 
^als,  with  general  principles,  with  laws,  which  he  above  the 
welter  of  concrete  details.  In  the  educational  precipitate,  the 
pupil  is  supposed  to  have  to  learn,  on  one  hand,  a  lot  of 
items  of  specific  information,  each  standing  by  itself,  and 
upon  the  other  hand,  to  become  familiar  with  a  certain  number 
of  laws  and  general  relationships.  Geography,  as  often 
taught,  illustrates  the  former ;  mathematics,  beyond  the  rudi- 
ments of  figuring,  the  latter.  For  all  practical  purposes, 
they  represent  two  independent  worlds. 

Another  antithesis  is  suggested  by  the  two  senses  of  the 
word  *  learning.'  On  the  one  hand,  learning  is  the  sum  total 
of  what  is  known,  as  that  is  handed  down  by  books  and  learned 
men.    It  is  something  external,  an  accumulation  of  cognitions. 


39©  Philosophy  of  Edttcation 

as  one  might  store  material  commodities  in  a  warehouse 
Truth  exists  ready-made  somewhere.  Study  is  then  the  pro- 
cess by  which  an  individual  draws  on  what  is  in  storage.  On 
the  other  hand,  learning  means  something  which  the  individual 
does  when  he  studies.  It  is  an  active,  personally  conducted 
affair.  The  dualism  here  is  between  knowledge  as  something 
external,  or,  as  it  is  often  called,  objective,  and  knowing  as 
something  purely  internal,  subjective,  psychical.  There  is, 
on  one  side,  a  body  of  truth,  ready-made,  and,  on  the  other,  a 
ready-made  mind  equipped  with  a  faculty  of  knowing  —  if  it 
only  wills  to  exercise  it,  which  it  is  often  strangely  loath  to 
do.  The  separation,  often  touched  upon,  between  subject 
matter  and  method  is  the  educational  equivalent  of  this 
dualism.  Socially  the  distinction  has  to  do  with  the  part 
of  life  which  is  dependent  upon  authority  and  that  where 
individuals  are  free  to  advance. 

Another  dualism  is  that  of  activity  and  passivity  in  know- 
ing. Purely  empirical  and  physical  things  are  often  supposed 
to  be  known  by  receiving  impressions.  Physical  things  some- 
how stamp  themselves  upon  the  mind  or  convey  themselves 
into  consciousness  by  means  of  the  sense  organs.  Rational 
knowledge  and  knowledge  of  spiritual  things  is  supposed,  on 
the  contrary,  to  spring  from  activity  initiated  within  the 
mind,  an  activity  carried  on  better  if  it  is  kept  remote  from 
all  sullying  touch  of  the  senses  and  external  objects.  The  dis- 
tinction between  sense  training  and  object  lessons  and  labora- 
tory exercises,  and  pure  ideas  contained  in  books,  and  appro- 
priated —  so  it  is  thought  —  by  some  miraculous  output  of 
mental  energy,  is  a  fair  expression  in  education  of  this  distinc- 
tion. Socially,  it  reflects  a  division  between  those  who  are 
controlled  by  direct  concern  with  things  and  those  who  are 
free  to  cultivate  themselves. 

Another  current  opposition  is  that  said  to  exist  between  the 
intellect  and  the  emotions.  The  emotions  are  conceived  to 
be  purely  private  and  personal,  having  nothing  to  do  with  the 


Theories  of  Knowledge  391 

work  of  pure  intelligence  in  apprehending  facts  and  truths,  — 
except  perhaps  the  single  emotion  of  intellectual  curiosity. 
The  intellect  is  a  pure  hght;  the  emotions  are  a  disturbing 
heat.  The  mind  turns  outward  to  truth ;  the  emotions  turn 
inward  to  considerations  of  personal  advantage  and  loss. 
Thus  in  education  we  have  that  systematic  depreciation  of 
interest  which  has  been  noted,  plus  the  necessity  in  practice, 
with  most  pupils,  of  recourse  to  extraneous  and  irrelevant 
rewards  and  penalties  in  order  to  induce  the  person  who  has  a 
mind  (much  as  his  clothes  have  a  pocket)  to  apply  that  mind 
to  the  truths  to  be  known.  Thus  we  have  the  spectacle  of 
professional  educators  decrying  appeal  to  interest  while  they 
uphold  with  great  dignity  the  need  of  rehance  upon  examina- 
tions, marks,  promotions  and  emotions,  prizes,  and  the  time- 
honored  paraphernalia  of  rewards  and  punishments.  The  ef- 
fect of  this  situation  in  cripphng  the  teacher's  sense  of  himior 
has  not  received  the  attention  which  it  deserves. 

All  of  these  separations  culminate  in  one  between  knowing 
and  doing,  theory  and  practice,  between  mind  as  the  end  and 
spirit  of  action  and  the  body  as  its  organ  and  means.  We 
shall  not  repeat  what  has  been  said  about  the  source  of  this 
dualism  in  the  division  of  society  into  a  class  laboring  with  their 
muscles  for  material  sustenance  and  a  class  which,  relieved 
from  economic  pressure,  devotes  itself  to  the  arts  of  expression 
and  social  direction.  Nor  is  it  necessary  to  speak  again  of 
the  educational  evils  which  spring  from  the  separation.  We 
shall  be  content  to  summarize  the  forces  which  tend  to  make 
the  untenabiHty  of  this  conception  obvious  and  to  replace  it 
by  the  idea  of  continuity,  {i)  The  advance  of  physiology  and 
the  psychology  associated  with  it  have  shown  the  connection 
of  mental  activity  with  that  of  the  nervous  system.  Too  often 
recognition  of  connection  has  stopped  short  at  this  point; 
the  older  duahsm  of  soul  and  body  has  been  replaced  by  that 
of  the  brain  and  the  rest  of  the  body.  But  in  fact  the  nervous 
system  is  only  a  specialized  mechanism  for  keeping  all  bodily 


392  Philosophy  of  Education 

activities  working  together.  Instead  of  being  isolated  frojj 
them,  as  an  organ  of  knowing  from  organs  of  motor  response, 
it  is  the  organ  by  which  they  interact  responsively  with  one 
another.  The  brain  is  essentially  an  organ  for  effecting  the 
reciprocal  adjustment  to  each  other  of  the  stimuli  received  from 
the  en\dronment  and  responses  directed  upon  it.  Note  that 
the  adjusting  is  reciprocal ;  the  brain  not  only  enables  organic 
activity  to  be  brought  to  bear  upon  any  object  of  the  environ- 
ment in  response  to  a  sensory  stimulation,  but  this  response 
also  determines  what  the  next  stimulus  will  be.  See  what 
happens,  for  example,  when  a  carpenter  is  at  work  upon  a 
board,  or  an  etcher  upon  his  plate  —  or  in  any  case  of  a 
consecutive  activity.  While  each  motor  response  is  adjusted 
to  the  state  of  affairs  indicated  through  the  sense  organs,  that 
motor  response  shapes  the  next  sensory  stimulus.  Generaliz- 
ing this  illustration,  the  brain  is  the  machinery  for  a  constant 
reorganizing  of  activity  so  as  to  maintain  its  continuity; 
that  is  to  say,  to  make  such  modifications  in  future  action 
as  are  required  because  of  what  has  already  been  done.  The 
continuity  of  the  work  of  the  carpenter  distinguishes  it 
from  a  routine  repetition  of  identically  the  same  motion,  and 
from  a  random  activity  where  there  is  nothing  cumulative. 
What  makes  it  continuous,  consecutive,  or  concentrated  is 
that  each  earher  act  prepares  the  way  for  later  acts,  while 
these  take  account  of  or  reckon  with  the  results  already  at- 
tained —  the  basis  of  all  responsibiHty.  No  one  who  has 
realized  the  full  force  of  the  facts  of  the  connection  of  knowing 
with  the  nervous  system  and  of  the  nervous  system  with  the 
readjusting  of  activity  continuously  to  meet  new  conditions, 
will  doubt  that  knowing  has  to  do  with  reorganizing  activity, 
instead  of  being  something  isolated  from  all  activity,  complete 
on  its  own  account. 

(ii)  The  development  of  biology  clinches  this  lesson,  with  its 
discovery  of  evolution.  For  the  philosophic  significance  of 
the  doctrine  of  evolution  lies  precisely  in  its  emphasis  upon 


Theories  of  Knowledge  393 

continuity  of  simpler  and  more  complex  organic  forms  until 
we  reach  man.  The  development  of  organic  forms  begins 
with  structures  where  the  adjustment  of  environment  and  or- 
ganism is  obvious,  and  where  anything  which  can  be  called 
mind  is  at  a  minimum.  As  activity  becomes  more  complex, 
coordinating  a  greater  number  of  factors  in  space  and  time, 
intelligence  plays  a  more  and  more  marked  role,  for  it  has  a 
larger  span  of  the  future  to  forecast  and  plan  for.  The  effect 
upon  the  theory  of  knowing  is  to  displace  the  notion  that  it  is 
the  activity  of  a  mere  onlooker  or  spectator  of  the  world,  the 
notion  which  goes  with  the  idea  of  knowing  as  something  com- 
plete in  itself.  For  the  doctrine  of  organic  development  means 
that  the  living  creature  is  a  part  of  the  world,  sharing  its 
vicissitudes  and  fortunes,  and  making  itself  secure  in  its  pre- 
carious dependence  only  as  it  intellectually  identifies  itself 
with  the  things  about  it,  and,  forecasting  the  future  conse- 
quences of  what  is  going  on,  shapes  its  own  activities  accord- 
ingly. If  the  living,  experiencing  being  is  an  intimate  par- 
ticipant in  the  activities  of  the  world  to  which  it  belongs, 
then  knowledge  is  a  mode  of  participation,  valuable  in  the 
degree  in  which  it  is  effective.  It  cannot  be  the  idle  view  of  an 
unconcerned  spectator. 

(m)  The  development  of  the  experimental  method  as  the 
method  of  getting  knowledge  and  of  making  sure  it  is  knowl- 
edge, and  not  mere  opinion  —  the  method  of  both  discovery 
and  proof  —  is  the  remaining  great  force  in  bringing  about  a 
transformation  in  the  theory  of  knowledge.  The  experimental 
method  has  two  sides,  {i)  On  one  hand,  it  means  that  we 
have  no  right  to  call  anything  knowledge  except  where  our 
activity  has  actually  produced  certain  physical  changes  in 
things,  which  agree  with  and  confirm  the  conception  enter- 
tained. Short  of  such  specific  changes,  our  beliefs  are  only 
h3rpotheses,  theories,  suggestions,  guesses,  and  are  to  be 
entertained  tentatively  and  to  be  utilized  as  indications  of 
experiments  to  be  tried,     (w)  On  the  other  hand,  the  experi- 


394  Philosophy  of  Education 

mental  method  of  thinking  signifies  that  thinking  is  of  avail ; 
that  it  is  of  avail  in  just  the  degree  in  which  the  anticipation 
of  future  consequences  is  made  on  the  basis  of  thorough 
observation  of  present  conditions.  Experimentation,  in 
other  words,  is  not  equivalent  to  bHnd  reacting.  Such  surplus 
activity  —  a  surplus  with  reference  to  what  has  been  observed 
and  is  now  anticipated  —  is  indeed  an  unescapable  factor  in 
all  our  behavior,  but  it  is  not  experiment  save  as  consequences 
are  noted  and  are  used  to  make  predictions  and  plans  in  similar 
situations  in  the  future.  The  more  the  meaning  of  the  experi- 
mental method  is  perceived,  the  more  our  trying  out  of  a  cer- 
tain way  of  treating  the  material  resources  and  obstacles  which 
confront  us  embodies  a  prior  use  of  intelligence.  What  we 
call  magic  was  with  respect  to  many  things  the  experimental 
method  of  the  savage ;  but  for  him  to  try  wa^  to  try  his  luck, 
not  his  ideas.  The  scientific  experimental  method  is,  on  the 
contrary,  a  trial  of  ideas ;  hence  even  when  practically — or  im- 
mediately—  unsuccessful,  it  is  intellectual,  fruitful;  for  we  learn 
from  our  failures  when  our  endeavors  are  seriously  thoughtful. 
The  experimental  method  is  new  as  a  scientific  resource  — 
as  a  systematized  means  of  making  knowledge,  though  as  old  as 
life  as  a  practical  device.  Hence  it  is  not  surprising  that  men  i 
have  not  recognized  its  full  scope.  For  the  most  part,  its  sig-  ^ 
nificance  is  regarded  as  belonging  to  certain  technical  and 
merely  physical  matters.  It  will  doubtless  take  a  long  time  to 
secure  the  perception  that  it  holds  equally  as  to  the  forming 
and  testing  of  ideas  in  social  and  moral  matters.  Men  still 
want  the  crutch  of  dogma,  of  beliefs  fixed  by  authority,  to 
reUeve  them  of  the  trouble  of  thinking  and  the  responsibility 
of  directing  their  activity  by  thought.  They  tend  to  confine 
their  own  thinking  to  a  consideration  of  which  one  among 
the  rival  systems  of  dogma  they  will  accept.  Hence  the 
schools  are  better  adapted,  as  John  Stuart  Mill  said,  to  make 
disciples  than  inquirers.  But  every  advance  in  the  influence 
of  the  experimental  method  is  sure  to  aid  in  outlawing  the 


Theories  of  Knowledge  395 

literary,  dialectic,  and  authoritative  methods  of  forming  be- 
liefs which  have  governed  the  schools  of  the  past,  and  to  trans- 
fer their  prestige  to  methods  which  will  procure  an  active  con- 
cern with  things  and  persons,  directed  by  aims  of  increasing 
temporal  reach  and  deploying  greater  range  of  things  in  space. 
In  time  the  theory  of  knowing  must  be  derived  from  the  prac- 
tice which  is  most  successful  in  making  knowledge ;  and  then 
that  theory  will  be  employed  to  improve  the  methods  which 
are  less  successful. 

2.  Schools  of  Method.  — There  are  various  systems  of  philos- 
ophy with  characteristically  different  conceptions  of  the 
method  of  knowing.  Some  of  them  are  named  scholasticism, 
sensationaHsm,  rationaUsm,  idealism,  realism,  empiricism, 
transcendentahsm,  pragmatism,  etc.  Many  of  them  have 
been  criticized  in  connection  with  the  discussion  of  some  educa- 
tional problem.  We  are  here  concerned  with  them  as  involv- 
ing deviations  from  that  method  which  has  proved  most 
effective  in  achieving  knowledge,  for  a  consideration  of  the 
deviations  may  render  clearer  the  true  place  of  knowledge  in 
experience.  In  brief,  the  function  of  knowledge  is  to  make  one 
experience  freely  available  in  other  experiences.  The  word 
*  freely  '  marks  the  difference  between  the  principle  of  knowl- 
edge and  that  of  habit.  Habit  means  that  an  individual 
undergoes  a  modification  through  an  experience,  which  modifi' 
cation  forms  a  predisposition  to  easier  and  more  effective  action 
in  a  like  direction  in  the  future.  Thus  it  also  has  the  function 
of  making  one  experience  available  in  subsequent  experiences. 
Within  certain  limits,  it  performs  this  function  successfully. 
But  habit,  apart  from  knowledge,  does  not  make  allowance 
for  change  of  conditions,  for  novelty.  Prevision  of  change 
is  not  part  of  its  scope,  for  habit  assumes  the  essential  like- 
ness of  the  new  situation  with  the  old.  Consequently  it  often 
leads  astray,  or  comes  between  a  person  and  the  successful 
performance  of  his  task,  just  as  the  skill,  based  on  habit  alone, 
of  the  mechanic  will  desert  him  when  something  unexpected 


396  Philosophy  of  Edttcation 

occurs  in  the  running  of  the  machine.  But  a  man  who  under- 
stands the  machine  is  the  man  who  knows  what  he  is  about. 
He  knows  the  conditions  under  which  a  given  habit  works, 
and  is  in  a  position  to  introduce  the  changes  which  will  re- 
adapt  it  to  new  conditions. 

In  other  words,  knowledge  is  a  perception  of  those  connec- 
tions of  an  object  which  determine  its  apphcabihty  in  a 
given  situation.  To  take  an  extreme  example ;  savages  react 
to  a  flaming  comet  as  they  are  accustomed  to  react  to  other 
events  which  threaten  the  security  of  their  life.  Since  they 
try  to  frighten  wild  animals  or  their  enemies  by  shrieks,  beating 
of  gongs,  brandishing  of  weapons,  etc.,  they  use  the  same 
methods  to  scare  away  the  comet.  To  us,  the  method  is 
plainly  absurd  —  so  absurd  that  we  fail  to  note  that  savages 
are  simply  falling  back  upon  habit  in  a  way  which  exhibits 
its  limitations.  The  only  reason  we  do  not  act  in  some  analo- 
gous fashion  is  because  we  do  not  take  the  comet  as  an  iso- 
lated, disconnected  event,  but  apprehend  it  in  its  connections 
with  other  events.  We  place  it,  as  we  say,  in  the  astronomical 
system.  We  respond  to  its  connections  and  not  simply  to  the 
immediate  occurrence.  Thus  our  attitude  to  it  is  much  freer. 
We  may  approach  it,  so  to  speak,  from  any  one  of  the  angles 
provided  by  its  connections.  We  can  bring  into  play,  as  we 
deem  wise,  any  one  of  the  habits  appropriate  to  any  one  of 
the  connected  objects.  Thus  we  get  at  a  new  event  indirectly 
instead  of  immediately  —  by  invention,  ingenuity,  resourceful- 
ness. An  ideally  perfect  knowledge  would  represent  such  a 
network  of  interconnections  that  any  past  experience  would 
offer  a  point  of  advantage  from  which  to  get  at  the  problem 
presented  in  a  new  experience.  In  fine,  while  a  habit  apart 
from  knowledge  suppHes  us  with  a  single  fijxed  method  of 
attack,  knowledge  means  that  selection  may  be  made  from  a 
much  wider  range  of  habits. 

Two  aspects  of  this  more  general  and  freer  availability  of 
former  experiences  for  subsequent  ones  may  be  distinguished. 


i 


Theories  of  Knowledge  397 

(See  ante,  p.  90.)  {i)  One,  the  more  tangible,  is  increased 
power  of  control.  What  cannot  be  managed  directly  may  be 
handled  indirectly;  or  we  can  interpose  barriers  between  us 
and  undesirable  consequences ;  or  we  may  evade  them  if  we 
cannot  overcome  them.  Genuine  knowledge  has  all  the  practi- 
cal value  attaching  to  efficient  habits  in  any  case,  (w)  But 
it  also  increases  the  meaning,  the  experienced  significance, 
attaching  to  an  experience.  A  situation  to  which  we  respond 
capriciously  or  by  routine  has  only  a  minimum  of  conscious 
significance ;  we  get  nothing  mentally  from  it.  But  wherever 
knowledge  comes  into  play  in  determining  a  new  experience 
there  is  mental  reward ;  even  if  we  fail  practically  in  getting 
the  needed  control  we  have  the  satisfaction  of  experiencing  a 
meaning  instead  of  merely  reacting  physically. 

While  the  content  of  knowledge  is  what  has  happened,  what 
is  taken  as  finished  and  hence  settled  and  sure,  the  reference  of 
knowledge  is  future  or  prospective.  For  knowledge  furnishes 
the  means  of  understanding  or  giving  meaning  to  what  is  still 
going  on  and  what  is  to  be  done.  The  knowledge  of  a  physician 
is  what  he  has  found  out  by  personal  acquaintance  and  by 
study  of  what  others  have  ascertained  and  recorded.  But  it 
is  knowledge  to  him  because  it  supplies  the  resources  by  which 
he  interprets  the  unknown  things  which  confront  him,  fills 
out  the  partial  obvious  facts  with  connected  suggested  phe- 
nomena, foresees  their  probable  future,  and  makes  plans  ac- 
cordingly. When  knowledge  is  cut  off  from  use  in  gi\dng 
meaning  to  what  is  blind  and  bafiling,  it  drops  out  of  con- 
sciousness entirely  or  else  becomes  an  object  of  aesthetic  con- 
templation. There  is  much  emotional  satisfaction  to  be  had 
from  a  survey  of  the  symmetry  and  order  of  possessed  knowl- 
edge, and  the  satisfaction  is  a  legitimate  one.  But  this  con- 
templative attitude  is  aesthetic,  not  intellectual.  It  is  the 
same  sort  of  joy  that  comes  from  viewing  a  finished  picture 
or  a  well  composed  landscape.  It  would  make  no  difference 
if  the  subject  matter  were  totally  different,  provided  it  had 


398  Philosophy  of  Education 

the  same  harmonious  organization.  Indeed,  it  would  make 
no  difiference  if  it  were  wholly  invented,  a  play  of  fancy.  Ap- 
plicabiHty  to  the  world  means  not  appUcability  to  what  is 
past  and  gone  —  that  is  out  of  the  question  by  the  nature  of 
the  case;  it  means  applicabihty  to  what  is  still  going  on, 
what  is  still  unsettled,  in  the  moving  scene  in  which  we  are 
implicated.  The  very  fact  that  we  so  easily  overlook  this 
trait,  and  regard  statements  of  what  is  past  and  out  of  reach 
as  knowledge  is  because  we  assume  the  continuity  of  past  and 
future.  We  cannot  entertain  the  conception  of  a  world  in 
which  knowledge  of  its  past  would  not  be  helpful  in  forecasting 
and  giving  meaning  to  its  future.  We  ignore  the  prospective 
reference  just  because  it  is  so  irretrievably  imphed. 

Yet  many  of  the  philosophic  schools  of  method  which  have 
been  mentioned  transform  the  ignoring  into  a  virtual  denial. 
They  regard  knowledge  as  something  complete  in  itself 
irrespective  of  its  availabihty  in  dealing  with  what  is  yet  to 
be.  And  it  is  this  omission  which  vitiates  them  and  which 
makes  them  stand  as  sponsors  for  educational  methods  which 
an  adequate  conception  of  knowledge  condemns.  For  one 
has  only  to  call  to  mind  what  is  sometimes  treated  in  schools 
as  acquisition  of  knowledge  to  realize  how  lacking  it  is  in  any 
fruitful  connection  with  the  ongoing  experience  of  the  students 
—  how  largely  it  seems  to  be  beheved  that  the  mere  appro- 
priation of  subject  matter  which  happens  to  be  stored  in^ 
books  constitutes  knowledge.  No  matter  how  true  what  is 
learned  to  those  who  found  it  out  and  in  whose  experience  it( 
functioned,  there  is  nothing  which  makes  it  knowledge  to  the, 
pupils.  It  might  as  well  be  something  about  Mars  or  about; 
some  fanciful  country  unless  it  fructifies  in  the  individual's, 
own  Hfe. 

At  the  time  when  scholastic  method  developed,  it  had 
relevancy  to  social  conditions.  It  was  a  method  for  system- 
atizing and  lending  rational  sanction  to  material  accepted 
on  authority.     This  subject   matter  meant  so  much  that 


Theories  of  Knowledge  399 

it  vitalized  the  defining  and  systematizing  brought  to  bear 
upon  it.  Under  present  conditions  the  scholastic  method, 
for  most  persons,  means  a  form  of  knowing  which  has  no  es- 
pecial connection  with  any  particular  subject  matter.  It 
includes  making  distinctions,  definitions,  divisions,  and  classi- 
fications for  the  mere  sake  of  making  them  —  with  no  objective 
in  experience.  The  view  of  thought  as  a  purely  psychical 
activity  having  its  own  forms,  which  are  applied  to  any 
material  as  a  seal  may  be  stamped  on  any  plastic  stuff,  the 
view  which  underlies  what  is  termed  formal  logic  is  essentially 
the  scholastic  method  generalized.  The  doctrine  of  formal 
discipline  in  education  is  the  natural  counterpart  of  the 
scholastic  method. 

The  contrasting  theories  of  the  method  of  knowledge  which 
go  by  the  name  of  sensationaKsm  and  rationalism  correspond 
to  an  exclusive  emphasis  upon  the  particular  and  the  general 
respectively  —  or  upon  bare  facts  on  one  side  and  bare  rela- 
tions on  the  other.  In  real  knowledge,  there  is  a  particulariz- 
ing and  a  generalizing  function  working  together.  So  far  as 
a  situation  is  confused,  it  has  to  be  cleared  up ;  it  has  to  be 
resolved  into  details,  as  sharply  defined  as  possible.  Specified 
facts  and  quaHties  constitute  the  elements  of  the  problem  to  be 
dealt  with,  and  it  is  through  our  sense  organs  that  they  are 
specified.  As  setting  forth  the  problem,  they  may  well  be  termed 
particulars,  for  they  are  fragmentary.  Since  our  task  is  to 
discover  their  connections  and  to  recombine  them,  for  us  at 
the  time  they  are  partial.  They  are  to  be  given  meaning; 
hence,  just  as  they  stand,  they  lack  it.  Anything  which  is 
to  he  known,  whose  meaning  has  still  to  be  made  out,  offers 
itself  as  particular.  But  what  is  already  known,  if  it  has  been 
worked  over  with  a  view  to  making  it  applicable  to  intellec- 
tually mastering  new  particulars,  is  general  in  function.  Its 
function  of  introducing  connection  into  what  is  otherwise  un- 
connected constitutes  its  generality.  Any  fact  is  general  if  w^ 
use  it  to  give  meaning  to  the  elements  of  a  new  experience. 


400  Philosophy  of  Education 

*  Reason  '  is  just  the  ability  to  bring  the  subject  matter  oi 
prior  experience  to  bear  to  perceive  the  significance  of  the 
subject  matter  of  a  new  experience.  A  person  is  reasonable 
in  the  degree  in  which  he  is  habitually  open  to  seeing  an  event 
which  immediately  strikes  his  senses  not  as  an  isolated  thing 
but  in  its  connection  with  the  common  experience  of  mankind. 

Without  the  particulars  as  they  are  discriminated  by  the 
active  responses  of  sense  organs,  there  is  no  material  for  know- 
ing and  no  intellectual  growth.  Without  placing  these  partic- 
ulars in  the  context  of  the  meanings  wrought  out  in  the 
larger  experience  of  the  past  —  without  the  use  of  reason  or 
thought  —  particulars  ar^  mere  excitations  or  irritations. 
The  mistake  alike  of  the  sensational  and  the  rationalistic  I 
schools  is  that  each  fails  to  see  that  the  function  of  sensory 
stimulation  and  thought  is  relative  to  reorganizing  experience 
in  applying  the  old  to  the  new,  thereby  maintaining  the 
continuity  or  consistency  of  life. 

The  theory  of  the  method  of  knowing  which  is  advanced 
in  these  pages  may  be  termed  pragmatic.  Its  essential 
feature  is  to  maintain  the  continuity  of  knowing  with  an 
activity  which  purposely  modifies  the  environment.  It  holds 
that  knowledge  in  its  strict  sense  of  something  possessed 
consists  of  our  intellectual  resources  —  of  all  the  habits  that 
render  our  action  intelligent.  Only  that  which  has  been 
organized  into  our  disposition  so  as  to  enable  us  to  adapt  the 
environment  to  our  needs  and  to  adapt  our  aims  and  desires 
to  the  situation  in  which  we  five  is  really  knowledge.  Knowl- 
edge is  not  just  something  which  we  are  now  conscious  of,  but 
consists  of  the  dispositions  we  consciously  use  in  understanding 
what  now  happens.  Knowledge  as  an  act  is  bringing  some  of 
our  dispositions  to  consciousness  with  a  view  to  straightening 
out  a  perplexity,  by  conceiving  the  connection  between  our- 
selves and  the  world  in  which  we  live. 

Summary.  —  Such  social  divisions  as  interfere  with  fre© 
and  full  intercourse  react  to  make  the  intelligence  and  knowing 


Theories  of  Knowledge  401 

of  members  of  the  separated  classes  one-sided.  Those  whose 
experience  has  to  do  with  utilities  cut  off  from  the  larger  end 
they  subserve  are  practical  empiricists ;  those  who  enjoy  the 
contemplation  of  a  realm  of  meanings  in  whose  active  produc- 
tion they  have  had  no  share  are  practical  rationalists.  Those 
who  come  in  direct  contact  with  things  and  have  to  adapt  their 
activities  to  them  immediately  are,  in  effect,  reahsts;  those 
who  isolate  the  meanings  of  these  things  and  put  them  in  a 
religious  or  so-called  spiritual  world  aloof  from  things  are, 
in  efifect,  idealists.  Those  concerned  with  progress,  who  are 
striving  to  change  received  behefs,  emphasize  the  individual 
factor  in  knowing;  those  whose  chief  business  it  is  to  with- 
stand change  and  conserve  received  truth  emphasize  the  uni- 
versal and  the  fixed  —  and  so  on.  Philosophic  systems  in  their 
opposed  theories  of  knowledge  present  an  explicit  formulation 
of  the  traits  characteristic  of  these  cut-off  and  one-sided  seg- 
ments of  experience  —  one  sided  because  barriers  to  inter- 
course prevent  the  experience  of  one  from  being  enriched 
and  supplemented  by  that  of  others  who  are  differently 
situated. 

In  an  analogous  way,  since  democracy  stands  in  principle  for 
free  interchange,  for  social  continuity,  it  must  develop  a  theory 
of  knowledge  which  sees  in  knowledge  the  method  by  which 
one  experience  is  made  available  in  giving  direction  and  mean- 
ing to  another.  The  recent  advances  in  physiology,  biology, 
and  the  logic  of  the  experimental  sciences  supply  the  specific 
intellectual  instrumentahties  demanded  to  work  out  and 
formulate  such  a  theory.  Their  educational  equivalent  is 
the  connection  of  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  in  the  schools 
with  activities,  or  occupations,  carried  on  in  a  mediimi  of  as- 
sociated  life. 


as 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

THEORIES   OF  MORALS 

1.  The  Inner  and  the  Outer.  —  Since  morality  is  concerned 
with  conduct,  any  dualisms  which  are  set  up  between  mind 
and  activity  must  reflect  themselves  in  the  theory  of  morals. 
Since  the  formulations  of  the  separation  in  the  philosophic 
theory  of  morals  are  used  to  justify  and  ideaUze  the  practices 
employed  in  moral  training,  a  brief  critical  discussion  is  in 
place.  It  is  a  commonplace  of  educational  theory  that  the  estab- 
Hshing  of  character  is  a  comprehensive  aim  of  school  instruction 
and  discipline.  Hence  it  is  important  that  we  should  be  on 
our  guard  against  a  conception  of  the  relations  of  intelligence 
to  character  which  hampers  the  realization  of  the  aim,  and  on 
the  look-out  for  the  conditions  which  have  to  be  provided  in 
order  that  the  aim  may  be  successfully  acted  upon. 

The  first  obstruction  which  meets  us  is  the  currency  of 
moral  ideas  which  spht  the  course  of  activity  into  two  opposed 
factors,  often  named  respectively  the  inner  and  outer,  or  the 
spiritual  and  the  physical.  This  division  is  a  culmination 
of  the  duaUsm  of  mind  and  the  world,  soul  and  body,  end  and 
means,  which  we  have  so  frequently  noted.  In  morals  it 
takes  the  form  of  a  sharp  demarcation  of  the  motive  of  action 
from  its  consequences,  and  of  character  from  conduct.  Motive 
and  character  are  regarded  as  something  purely  *  inner,'  exist- 
ing exclusively  in  consciousness,  while  consequences  and  con- 
duct are  regarded  as  outside  of  mind,  conduct  having  to  do 
simply  with  the  movements  which  carry  out  motives;  con- 
sequences  with  what  happens  as  a  result.  Different  schools 
identify  morality  with  either  the  inner  state  of  mind  or  the 
outer  act  and  results,  each  in  separation  from  the  other. 


Theories  of  Morals  403 

Action  with  a  purpose  is  deliberate ;  it  involves  a  consciously 
foreseen  end  and  a  mental  weighing  of  considerations  pro  and 
con.  It  also  involves  a  conscious  state  of  longing  or  desire 
for  the  end.  The  deUberate  choice  of  an  aim  and  of  a  settled 
disposition  of  desire  takes  time.  During  this  time  complete 
overt  action  is  suspended.  A  person  who  does  not  have  his 
mind  made  up,  does  not  know  what  to  do.  Consequently  he 
postpones  definite  action  so  far  as  possible.  His  position 
may  be  compared  to  that  of  man  considering  jumping  across 
a  ditch.  If  he  were  sure  he  could  or  could  not  make  it,  definite 
activity  in  some  direction  would  occur.  But  if  he  considers, 
he  is  in  doubt;  he  hesitates.  During  the  time  in  which  a 
single  overt  line  of  action  is  in  suspense,  his  activities  are  con- 
fined to  such  redistributions  of  energy  within  the  organism 
as  will  prepare  a  determinate  course  of  action.  He  measures 
the  ditch  with  his  eyes ;  he  brings  himself  taut  to  get  a  feel  of 
the  energy  at  his  disposal ;  he  looks  about  for  other  ways  across, 
he  reflects  upon  the  importance  of  getting  across.  All  this 
means  an  accentuation  of  consciousness ;  it  means  a  turning 
in  upon  the  individual's  own  attitudes,  powers,  wishes,  etc. 

Obviously,  however,  this  surging  up  of  personal  factors  into 
conscious  recognition  is  a  part  of  the  whole  activity  in  its 
temporal  development.  There  is  not  first  a  purely  psychical 
process,  followed  abruptly  by  a  radically  different  physical  one. 
There  is  one  continuous  behavior,  proceeding  from  a  more 
uncertain,  divided,  hesitating  state  to  a  more  overt,  deter- 
minate, or  complete  state.  The  activity  at  first  consists  mainly 
of  certain  tensions  and  adjustments  within  the  organism; 
as  these  are  coordinated  into  a  unified  attitude,  the  organism 
as  a  whole  acts  —  some  definite  act  is  undertaken.  We 
may  distinguish,  of  course,  the  more  explicitly  conscious  phase 
of  the  continuous  activity  as  mental  or  psychical.  But  that 
only  identifies  the  mental  or  psychical  to  mean  the  indeter- 
minate, formative  state  of  an  activity  which  in  its  fullness  in- 
volves putting  forth  of  overt  energy  to  modify  the  environment 


404  Philosophy  oj  Education 

Our  conscious  thoughts,  observations,  wishes,  aversions  are 
important,  because  they  represent  inchoate,  nascent  activities. 
They  fulfill  their  destiny  in  issuing,  later  on,  into  specific  and 
perceptible  acts.  And  these  inchoate,  budding  organic  re- 
adjustments are  important  because  they  are  our  sole  escape 
from  the  dominion  of  routine  habits  and  bHnd  impulse.  They 
are  activities  having  a  new  meaning  in  process  of  development. 
Hence,  normally,  there  is  an  accentuation  of  personal  con- 
sciousness whenever  our  instincts  and  ready  formed  habits 
find  themselves  blocked  by  novel  conditions.  Then  we  are 
thrown  back  upon  ourselves  to  reorganize  our  own  attitude 
before  proceeding  to  a  definite  and  irretrievable  course  of  ac- 
tion. Unless  we  try  to  drive  our  way  through  by  sheer  brute 
force,  we  must  modify  our  organic  resources  to  adapt  them  to 
the  specific  features  of  the  situation  in  which  we  find  ourselves. 
The  conscious  dehberating  and  desiring  which  precede  overt 
action  are,  then,  the  methodic  personal  readjustment  implied 
in  activity  in  uncertain  situations. 

This  role  of  mind  in  continuous  activity  is  not  always 
maintained,  however.  Desires  for  something  different,  aver- 
sion to  the  given  state  of  things  caused  by  the  blocking  of 
successful  acti\'ity,  stimulates  the  imagination.  The  picture 
of  a  different  state  of  things  does  not  always  function  to  aid 
ingenious  observation  and  recollection  to  find  a  way  out  and 
on.  Except  where  there  is  a  discipHned  disposition,  the  tend- 
ency is  for  the  imagination  to  run  loose.  Instead  of  its  ob- 
jects being  checked  up  by  conditions  with  reference  to  their 
practicability  in  execution,  they  are  allowed  to  develop  be- 
cause of  the  immediate  emotional  satisfaction  which  they 
yield.  When  we  find  the  successful  display  of  our  energies 
checked  by  uncongenial  surroundings,  natural  and  social,  the 
easiest  way  out  is  to  build  castles  in  the  air  and  let  them  be  a 
substitute  for  an  actual  achievement  which  involves  the  pains 
of  thought.  So  in  overt  action  we  acquiesce,  and  build  up  an 
imaginary  world  in  mind.    This  break  between  thought  and 


Theories  of  Morals  405 

conduct  is  reflected  in  those  theories  which  make  a  sharp 
separation  between  mind  as  inner  and  conduct  and  conse- 
quences as  merely  outer. 

For  the  spHt  may  be  more  than  an  incident  of  a  particular 
individual's  experience.  The  social  situation  may  be  such 
as  to  throw  the  class  given  to  articulate  reflection  back  into 
their  own  thoughts  and  desires  without  providing  the  means 
by  which  these  ideas  and  aspirations  can  be  used  to  reorganize 
the  environment.  Under  such  conditions,  men  take  revenge, 
as  it  were,  upon  the  ahen  and  hostile  environment  by  culti- 
vating contempt  for  it,  by  giving  it  a  bad  name.  They  seek 
refuge  and  consolation  within  their  own  states  of  mind,  their 
own  imaginings  and  wishes,  which  they  compliment  by 
calling  both  more  real  and  more  ideal  than  the  despised  outer 
world.  Such  periods  have  recurred  in  history.  In  the  early 
centuries  of  the  Christian  era,  the  influential  moral  systems 
of  Stoicism,  of  monastic  and  popular  Christianity  and  other 
religious  movements  of  the  day,  took  shape  under  the  in- 
fluence of  such  conditions.  The  more  action  which  might 
express  prevaihng  ideals  was  checked,  the  more  the  inner 
possession  and  cultivation  of  ideals  was  regarded  as  self- 
sufficient  —  as  the  essence  of  morality.  The  external  world  in 
which  activity  belongs  was  thought  of  as  morally  indifferent. 
Everything  lay  in  having  the  right  motive,  even  though  that 
motive  was  not  a  moving  force  in  the  world.  Much  the  same 
sort  of  situation  recurred  in  Germany  in  the  later  eighteenth 
and  early  nineteenth  centuries ;  it  led  to  the  Kantian  insist- 
ence upon  the  good  will  as  the  sole  moral  good,  the  will  being 
regarded  as  something  complete  in  itself,  apart  from  action 
and  from  the  changes  or  consequences  effected  in  the  world. 
Later  it  led  to  any  idealization  of  existing  institutions  as  them- 
selves the  embodiment  of  reason. 

The  purely  internal  morality  of  *  meaning  well,'  of  having  a 
good  disposition  regardless  of  what  comes  of  it,  naturally  led 
to  a  reaction.    This  is  generally  known  as  either  hedonism  or 


4o6  Philosophy  of  Education 

utilitarianism.  It  was  said  in  effect  that  the  important  thing 
morally  is  not  what  a  man  is  inside  of  his  own  consciousness, 
but  what  he  does  —  the  consequences  which  issue,  the  changes 
he  actually  effects.  Inner  morality  was  attacked  as  senti- 
mental, arbitrary,  dogmatic,  subjective  —  as  giving  men 
leave  to  dignify  and  shield  any  dogma  congenial  to  their 
self-interest  or  any  caprice  occurring  to  imagination  by  calHng 
it  an  intuition  or  an  ideal  of  conscience.  Results,  conduct, 
are  what  counts ;  they  afford  the  sole  measure  of  morahty. 

Ordinary  morality,  and  hence  that  of  the  schoolroom,  is 
likely  to  be  an  inconsistent  compromise  of  both  views.  On  one 
hand,  certain  states  of  feeling  are  made  much  of ;  the  indi- 
vidual must  '  mean  well,'  and  if  his  intentions  are  good,  if  he 
had  the  right  sort  of  emotional  consciousness,  he  may  be  re- 
lieved of  responsibility  for  full  results  in  conduct.  But  since, 
on  the  other  hand,  certain  things  have  to  be  done  to  meet  the 
convenience  and  the  requirements  of  others,  and  of  social  order 
in  general,  there  is  great  insistence  upon  the  doing  of  certain 
things,  irrespective  of  whether  the  individual  has  any  concern 
or  intelligence  in  their  doing.  He  must  toe  the  mark;  he 
must  have  his  nose  held  to  the  grindstone ;  he  must  obey ; 
he  must  form  useful  habits ;  he  must  learn  self-control,  — 
all  of  these  precepts  being  understood  in  a  way  which 
emphasizes  simply  the  immediate  thing  tangibly  done,  ir- 
respective of  the  spirit  of  thought  and  desire  in  which  it  is 
done,  and  irrespective  therefore  of  its  effect  upon  other  less 
obvious  doings. 

It  is  hoped  that  the  prior  discussion  has  sufficiently  elabo- 
rated the  method  by  which  both  of  these  evils  are  avoided.  One 
or  both  of  these  evils  must  result  wherever  individuals,  whether 
young  or  old,  cannot  engage  in  a  progressively  cumulative 
undertaking  under  conditions  which  engage  their  interest  and 
require  their  reflection.  For  only  in  such  cases  is  it  possible 
that  the  disposition  of  desire  and  thinking  should  be  an  organic 
factor  in  overt  and  obvious  conduct.     Given  a  consecutive 


Theories  of  Morals  407 

activity  embodying  the  student's  own  interest,  where  a  definite 
result  is  to  be  obtained,  and  where  neither  routine  habit  nor 
the  following  of  dictated  directions  nor  capricious  improvising 
will  suffice,  and  there  the  rise  of  conscious  purpose,  con- 
scious desire,  and  dehberate  reflection  are  inevitable.  They 
are  inevitable  as  the  spirit  and  quality  of  an  activity  having 
specific  consequences,  not  as  forming  an  isolated  realm  of  inner 
consciousness. 

2.  The  Opposition  of  Duty  and  Interest.  —  Probably  there 
is  no  antithesis  more  often  set  up  in  moral  discussion  than  that 
between  acting  from  *  principle  '  and  from  '  interest.'  To 
act  on  principle  is  to  act  disinterestedly,  according  to  a  general 
law,  which  is  above  all  personal  considerations.  To  act  ac- 
cording to  interest  is,  so  the  allegation  runs,  to  act  selfishly, 
with  one's  own  personal  profit  in  view.  It  substitutes  the 
changing  expediency  of  the  moment  for  devotion  to  unswerving 
moral  law.  The  false  idea  of  interest  underlying  this  opposi- 
tion has  already  been  criticized  (See  Chapter  X),  but  some 
moral  aspects  of  the  question  will  now  be  considered. 

A  clew  to  the  matter  may  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the 
supporters  of  the  *  interest '  side  of  the  controversy  habitually 
use  the  term  'self-interest.'  Starting  from  the  premisses  that 
unless  there  is  interest  in  an  object  or  idea,  there  is  no  motive 
force,  they  end  with  the  conclusion  that  even  when  a  person 
claims  to  be  acting  from  principle  or  from  a  sense  of  duty,  he 
really  acts  as  he  does  because  there  'is  something  in  it'  for 
himself.  The  premiss  is  sound;  the  conclusion  false.  In 
reply  the  other  school  argues  that  since  man  is  capable  of 
generous  self-forgetting  and  even  self-sacrificing  action,  he 
is  capable  of  acting  without  interest.  Again  the  premiss 
is  sound,  and  the  conclusion  false.  The  error  on  both  sides 
lies  in  a  false  notion  of  the  relation  of  interest  and  the  self. 

Both  sides  assume  that  the  self  is  a  fixed  and  hence  isolated 
quantity.  As  a  consequence,  there  is  a  rigid  dilemma  between 
acting  for  an  interest  of  the  self  and  without  interest.    If  the  self 


4o8  Philosophy  of  Education 

is  something  fixed  antecedent  to  action,  then  acting  from  inter- 
est means  trying  to  get  more  in  the  way  of  possessions  for  the 
self  —  whether  in  the  way  of  fame,  approval  of  others,  power 
over  others,  pecuniary  profit,  or  pleasure.  Then  the  reaction 
from  this  view  as  a  cynical  depreciation  of  human  nature  leads 
to  the  view  that  men  who  act  nobly  act  with  no  interest  at 
all.  Yet  to  an  unbiased  judgment  it  would  appear  plain  that 
a  man  must  be  interested  in  what  he  is  doing  or  he  would 
not  do  it.  A  physician  who  continues  to  serve  the  sick  in  a 
plague  at  almost  certain  danger  to  his  own  life  must  be  in- 
terested in  the  efficient  performance  of  his  profession  —  more 
interested  in  that  than  in  the  safety  of  his  own  bodily  life. 
But  it  is  distorting  facts  to  say  that  this  interest  is  merely  a 
mask  for  an  interest  in  something  else  which  he  gets  by  con- 
tinuing his  customary  services  — such  as  money  or  good  repute 
or  virtue ;  that  it  is  only  a  means  to  an  ulterior  selfish  end. 
The  moment  we  recognize  that  the  self  is  not  something  ready- 
made,  but  something  in  continuous  formation  through  choice 
of  action,  the  whole  situation  clears  up.  A  man's  interest  in 
keeping  at  his  work  in  spite  of  danger  to  life  means  that  his 
self  is  found  in  that  work ;  if  he  finally  gave  up,  and  pre- 
ferred his  personal  safety  or  comfort,  it  would  mean  that  he 
preferred  to  be  that  kind  of  a  self.  The  mistake  lies  in  mak- 
ing a  separation  between  interest  and  self,  and  supposing 
that  the  latter  is  the  end  to  which  interest  in  objects  and  acts 
and  others  is  a  mere  means.  In  fact,  self  and  interest  are 
two  names  for  the  same  fact ;  the  kind  and  amount  of  interest 
actively  taken  in  a  thing  reveals  and  measures  the  quality 
of  selfhood  which  exists.  Bear  in  mind  that  interest  means 
the  active  or  moving  identity  of  the  self  with  a  certain  object, 
and  the  whole  alleged  dilemma  falls  to  the  ground. 

Unselfishness,  for  example,  signifies  neither  lack  of  interest 
in  what  is  done  (that  would  mean  only  machine-Uke  indiffer- 
ence) nor  selflessness — which  would  mean  absence  of  virility 
and   character.    As   employed   everywhere   outside   of   this 


Theories  of  Morals  409 

particular  theoretical  controversy,  the  term  '  unselfishness '  re- 
fers to  the  kind  of  aims  and  objects  which  habitually  interest 
a  man.  And  if  we  make  a  mental  survey  of  the  kind  of  inter- 
ests which  evoke  the  use  of  this  epithet,  we  shall  see  that  they 
have  two  intimately  associated  features,  {i)  The  generous 
self  consciously  identifies  itself  with  the  full  range  of  relation- 
ships implied  in  its  activity,  instead  of  drawing  a  sharp  line 
between  itself  and  considerations  which  are  excluded  as  alien 
or  indifferent;  {ii)  it  readjusts  and  expands  its  past  ideas 
of  itself  to  take  in  new  consequences  as  they  become  per- 
ceptible. When  the  physician  began  his  career  he  may  not 
have  thought  of  a  pestilence;  he  may  not  have  consciously 
identified  himself  with  service  under  such  conditions.  But, 
if  he  has  a  normally  growing  or  active  self,  when  he  finds 
that  his  vocation  involves  such  risks,  he  willingly  adopts  them 
as  integral  portions  of  his  activity.  The  wider  or  larger  self 
which  means  inclusion  instead  of  denial  of  relationships  is 
identical  with  a  self  which  enlarges  in  order  to  assume  pre- 
viously unforeseen  ties. 

In  such  crises  of  readjustment — and  the  crisis  maybe  slight 
as  well  as  great  —  there  may  be  a  transitional  conflict  of 
'  principle  '  with  '  interest.'  It  is  the  nature  of  a  habit  to 
involve  ease  in  the  accustomed  line  of  activity.  It  is  the 
nature  of  a  readjusting  of  habit  to  involve  an  effort  which  is 
disagreeable  —  something  to  which  a  man  has  deliberately  to 
hold  himself.  In  other  words,  there  is  a  tendency  to  identify 
the  self  —  or  take  interest  —  in  what  one  has  got  used  to,  and 
to  turn  away  the  mind  with  aversion  or  irritation  when  an 
unexpected  thing  which  involves  an  unpleasant  modifica- 
tion of  habit  comes  up.  Since  in  the  past  one  has  done  one's 
duty  without  having  to  face  such  a  disagreeable  circumstance, 
why  not  go  on  as  one  has  been  ?  To  yield  to  this  temptation 
means  to  narrow  and  isolate  the  thought  of  the  self  —  to 
treat  it  as  complete.  Any  habit,  no  matter  how  efficient  in 
the  past,  which  has  become  set,  may  at  any  time  bring  this 


41  o  Philosophy  of  Education 

temptation  with  it.  To  act  from  principle  in  such  an  emer- 
gency is  not  to  act  on  some  abstract  principle,  or  duty  at  large ; 
it  is  to  act  upon  the  principle  of  a  course  of  action,  instead  of 
upon  the  circumstances  which  have  attended  it.  The  principle 
of  a  physician's  conduct  is  its  animating  aim  and  spirit  — 
the  care  for  the  diseased.  The  principle  is  not  what  justifies 
an  activity,  for  the  principle  is  but  another  name  for  the  con- 
tinuity of  the  activity.  If  the  activity  as  manifested  in  its 
consequences  is  undesirable,  to  act  upon  principle  is  to  accen- 
tuate its  evil.  And  a  man  who  prides  himself  upon  acting 
upon  principle  is  likely  to  be  a  man  who  insists  upon  having  his 
own  way  without  learning  from  experience  what  is  the  better 
way.  He  fancies  that  some  abstract  principle  justifies  his 
course  of  action  v-'thout  recognizing  that  his  principle  needs 
justification. 

Assuming,  however,  that  school  conditions  are  such  as  to 
provide  desirable  occupations,  it  is  interest  in  the  occupation 
as  a  whole  —  that  is,  in  its  continuous  development  —  which 
keeps  a  pupil  at  his  work  in  spite  of  temporary  diversions  and 
unpleasant  obstacles.  Where  there  is  no  activity  having  a 
growing  significance,  appeal  to  principle  is  either  purely  verbal, 
or  a  form  of  obstinate  pride  or  an  appeal  to  extraneous  con- 
siderations clothed  with  a  dignified  title.  Undoubtedly  there 
are  junctures  where  momentary  interest  ceases  and  attention 
flags,  and  where  reenforcement  is  needed.  But  what  carries 
a  person  over  these  hard  stretches  is  not  loyalty  to  duty  in  the 
abstract,  but  interest  in  his  occupation.  Duties  are  *  ofiices  ' 
—  they  are  the  specific  acts  needed  for  the  fulfilling  of  a  func- 
tion —  or,  in  homely  language,  doing  one's  job.  And  the  man 
who  is  genuinely  interested  in  his  job  is  the  man  who  is  able 
to  stand  temporary  discouragement,  to  persist  in  the  face  of 
obstacles,  to  take  the  lean  with  the  fat :  he  makes  an  interest 
out  of  meeting  and  overcoming  difficulties  and  distractions. 

3.  Intelligence  and  Character.  —  A  noteworthy  paradox 
often  accompanies  discussions  of  morals.     On  the  one  hand, 


Theories  of  Morals  411 

there  is  an  identification  of  the  moral  with  the  rational. 
Reason  is  set  up  as  a  faculty  from  which  proceed  ultimate 
moral  intuitions,  and  sometimes,  as  in  the  Kantian  theory,  it 
is  said  to  supply  the  only  proper  moral  motive.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  value  of  concrete,  everyday  intelligence  is  con- 
stantly underestimated,  and  even  dehberately  depreciated. 
Morals  is  often  thought  to  be  an  affair  with  which  ordinary 
knowledge  has  nothing  to  do.  Moral  knowledge  is  thought 
to  be  a  thing  apart,  and  conscience  is  thought  of  as  something 
radically  different  from  consciousness.  This  separation,  if 
valid,  is  of  especial  significance  for  education.  Moral  educa^ 
tion  in  school  is  practically  hopeless  when  we  set  up  the  devel- 
opment of  character  as  a  supreme  end,  and  at  the  same  time 
treat  the  acquiring  of  knowledge  and  the  development  of 
understanding,  which  of  necessity  occupy  the  chief  part  of 
school  time,  as  having  nothing  to  do  with  character.  On  such 
a  basis,  moral  education  is  inevitably  reduced  to  some  kind  of 
catechetical  instruction,  or  lessons  about  morals.  Lessons 
'  about  morals  '  signify  as  matter  of  course  lessons  in  what 
other  people  think  about  virtues  and  duties.  It  amounts 
to  something  only  in  the  degree  in  which  pupils  happen  to  be 
already  animated  by  a  sympathetic  and  dignified  regard  for 
the  sentiments  of  others.  Without  such  a  regard,  it  has  no 
more  influence  on  character  than  information  about  the 
mountains  of  Asia ;  with  a  servile  regard,  it  increases  depend- 
ence upon  others,  and  throws  upon  those  in  authority  the 
responsibihty  for  conduct.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  direct  in- 
struction in  morals  has  been  effective  only  in  social  groups 
where  it  was  a  part  of  the  authoritative  control  of  the  many  by 
the  few.  Not  the  teaching  as  such  but  the  reenforcement  of 
it  by  the  whole  regime  of  which  it  was  an  incident  made  it 
effective.  To  attempt  to  get  similar  results  from  lessons  about 
morals  in  a  democratic  society  is  to  rely  upon  sentimental  magic. 
At  the  other  end  of  the  scale  stands  the  Socratic-Platonic 
teaching  which  identifies  knowledge  and  virtue  —  which  holds 


412  Philosophy  of  Education 

that  no  man  does  evil  knowingly  but  only  because  of  igno- 
rance of  the  good.  This  doctrine  is  commonly  attacked  on 
the  ground  that  nothing  is  more  common  than  for  a  man  to 
know  the  good  and  yet  do  the  bad :  not  knowledge,  but 
habituation  or  practice,  and  motive  are  what  is  required. 
Aristotle,  in  fact,  at  once  attacked  the  Platonic  teaching  on 
the  ground  that  moral  virtue  is  like  an  art,  such  as  medicine; 
the  experienced  practitioner  is  better  than  a  man  who  has 
theoretical  knowledge  but  no  practical  experience  of  disease 
and  remedies.  The  issue  turns,  however,  upon  what  is  meant 
by  knowledge.  Aristotle's  objection  ignored  the  gist  of 
Plato's  teaching  to  the  effect  that  man  could  not  attain  a 
theoretical  insight  into  the  good  except  as  he  had  passed 
through  years  of  practical  habituation  and  strenuous  discipline. 
Knowledge  of  the  good  was  not  a  thing  to  be  got  either  from 
books  or  from  others,  but  was  achieved  through  a  prolonged 
education.  It  was  the  final  and  culminating  grace  of  a  mature 
experience  of  life.  Irrespective  of  Plato's  position,  it  is  easy 
to  perceive  that  the  term  knowledge  is  used  to  denote  things  as 
far  apart  as  intimate  and  vital  personal  reahzation,  — a  convic- 
tion gained  and  tested  in  experience,  —  and  a  second-handed, 
largely  symbolic,  recognition  that  persons  in  general  beheve 
so  and  so  —  a  devitalized  remote  information.  That  the 
latter  does  not  guarantee  conduct,  that  it  does  not  profoundly 
affect  character,  goes  without  saying.  But  if  knowledge 
means  something  of  the  same  sort  as  our  conviction  gained 
by  trying  and  testing  that  sugar  is  sweet  and  quinine  bitter, 
the  case  stands  otherwise.  Every  time  a  man  sits  on  a  chair 
rather  than  on  a  stove,  carries  an  umbrella  when  it  rains, 
tonsults  a  doctor  when  ill  —  or  in  short  performs  any  of  the 
thousand  acts  which  make  up  his  daily  life,  he  proves  that 
knowledge  of  a  certain  kind  finds  direct  issue  in  conduct. 
There  is  every  reason  to  suppose  that  the  same  sort  of  knowl- 
edge of  good  has  a  Hke  expression ;  in  fact  '  good  '  is  ar> 
empty  term  xmless  it  includes  the  satisfactions  e:q)erienced  in 


Theories  of  Morals  413 

such  situations  as  those  mentioned.  Knowledge  that  other 
persons  are  supposed  to  know  something  might  lead  one  to  act 
so  as  to  win  the  approbation  others  attach  to  certain  actions, 
or  at  least  so  as  to  give  others  the  impression  that  one  agrees 
with  them ;  there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  lead  to  personal 
initiative  and  loyalty  in  behalf  of  the  beUefs  attributed  to 
them. 

It  is  not  necessary,  accordingly,  to  dispute  about  the  proper 
meaning  of  the  term  knowledge.  It  is  enough  for  educational 
purposes  to  note  the  different  quahties  covered  by  the  one 
name,  to  reahze  that  it  is  knowledge  gained  at  first  hand 
through  the  exigencies  of  experience  which  affects  conduct  in 
significant  ways.  If  a  pupil  learns  things  from  books  simply 
in  connection  with  school  lessons  and  for  the  sake  of  reciting 
what  he  has  learned  when  called  upon,  then  knowledge  will  have 
effect  upon  some  conduct — namely  upon  that  of  reproducing 
statements  at  the  demand  of  others.  There  is  nothing  sur- 
prising that  such  '  knowledge '  should  not  have  much  influence 
in  the  Hfe  out  of  school.  But  this  is  not  a  reason  for  making  a 
divorce  between  knowledge  and  conduct,  but  for  holding  in 
low  esteem  this  kind  of  knowledge.  The  same  thing  may  be 
said  of  knowledge  which  relates  merely  to  an  isolated  and 
technical  speciality;  it  modifies  action  but  only  in  its  own 
narrow  fine.  In  truth,  the  problem  of  moral  education  in  the 
schools  is  one  with  the  problem  of  securing  knowledge  —  the 
knowledge  connected  with  the  system  of  impulses  and  habits. 
For  the  use  to  which  any  known  fact  is  put  depends  upon 
its  connections.  The  knowledge  of  dynamite  of  a  safe- 
cracker may  be  identical  in  verbal  form  with  that  of  a  chemist ; 
in  fact,  it  is  different,  for  it  is  knit  into  connection  with  different 
aims  and  habits,  and  thus  has  a  different  import. 

Our  prior  discussion  of  subject-matter  as  proceeding  from 
direct  activity  having  an  immediate  aim,  to  the  enlargement 
of  meaning  found  in  geography  and  history,  and  then  Xm 
scientifically  organized  knowledge,  was  based  upon  the  idea 


414  Philosophy  of  Education 

of  maintaining  a  vital  connection  between  knowledge  and 
activity.  What  is  learned  and  employed  in  an  occupation 
having  an  aim  and  involving  cooperation  with  others  is  moral 
knowledge,  whether  consciously  so  regarded  or  not.  For  it 
builds  up  a  social  interest  and  confers  the  intelligence  needed 
to  make  that  interest  elBfective  in  practice.  Just  because  the 
studies  of  the  curriculum  represent  standard  factors  in  social 
life,  they  are  organs  of  initiation  into  social  values.  As  mere 
school  studies,  their  acquisition  has  only  a  technical  worth. 
Acquired  under  conditions  where  their  social  significance  is 
realized,  they  feed  moral  interest  and  develop  moral  insight. 
Moreover,  the  qualities  of  mind  discussed  under  the  topic  of 
method  of  learning  are  all  of  them  intrinsically  moral  qual- 
ities. Open-mindedness,  singlemindedness,  sincerity,  breadth 
of  outlook,  thoroughness,  assumption  of  responsibiUty  for 
developing  the  consequences  of  ideas  which  are  accepted,  are 
moral  traits.  The  habit  of  identifying  moral  characteristics 
with  external  conformity  to  authoritative  prescriptions  may 
lead  us  to  ignore  the  ethical  value  of  these  intellectual 
attitudes,  but  the  same  habit  tends  to  reduce  morals  to  a  dead 
and  machine-like  routine.  Consequently  while  such  an  atti- 
tude has  moral  results,  the  results  are  morally  undesirable  — 
above  all  in  a  democratic  society  where  so  much  depends 
upon  personal  disposition. 

4.  The  Social  and  the  Moral.  —  All  of  the  separations  which 
we  have  been  criticizing — and  which  the  idea  of  education  set 
forth  in  the  previous  chapters  is  designed  to  avoid  —  spring 
from  taking  morals  too  narrowly,  —  giving  them,  on  one  side, 
a  sentimental  goody-goody  turn  without  reference  to  effective 
ability  to  do  what  is  socially  needed,  and,  on  the  other  side, 
overemphasizing  convention  and  tradition  so  as  to  limit 
morals  to  a  list  of  definitely  stated  acts.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
morals  are  as  broad  as  acts  which  concern  our  relationships  with 
others.  And  potentially  this  includes  all  our  acts,  even  though 
their  social  bearing  may  not  be  thou^t  of  at  the  time  of  pex- 


Theories  of  Morals  415 

formance.  For  every  act,  by  the  principle  of  habit,  modifies 
disposition  — it  sets  up  a  certain  kind  of  inclination  and  desire. 
And  it  is  impossible  to  tell  when  the  habit  thus  strengthened 
may  have  a  direct  and  perceptible  influence  on  our  association 
with  others.  Certain  traits  of  character  have  such  an  obvious 
connection  with  our  social  relationships  that  we  call  them 
'  moral '  in  an  emphatic  sense  —  truthfulness,  honesty, 
chastity,  amiability,  etc.  But  this  only  means  that  they  are, 
as  compared  with  some  other  attitudes,  central: — that  they 
carry  other  attitudes  with  them.  They  are  moral  in  an 
emphatic  sense  not  because  they  are  isolated  and  exclusive,  but 
because  they  are  so  intimately  connected  with  thousands  of 
other  attitudes  which  we  do  not  expHcitly  recognize  —  which 
perhaps  we  have  not  even  names  for.  To  call  them  virtues 
in  their  isolation  is  like  taking  the  skeleton  for  the  living 
body.  The  bones  are  certainly  important,  but  their  impor- 
tance lies  in  the  fact  that  they  support  other  organs  of  the 
body  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  them  capable  of  integrated 
effective  activity.  And  the  same  is  true  of  the  qualities  of 
character  which  we  specifically  designate  virtues.  Morals 
concern  nothing  less  than  the  whole  character,  and  the 
whole  character  is  identical  with  the  man  in  all  his  concrete 
make-up  and  manifestations.  To  possess  virtue  does  not 
signify  to  have  cultivated  a  few  nameable  and  exclusive 
traits ;  it  means  to  be  fully  and  adequately  what  one  is 
capable  of  becoming  through  association  with  others  in  all 
the  offices  of  Hfe. 

The  moral  and  the  social  quality  of  conduct  are,  in  the  last 
analysis,  identical  with  each  other.  It  is  then  but  to  restate 
explicitly  the  import  of  our  earlier  chapters  regarding  the 
social  function  of  education  to  say  that  the  measure  of  the 
worth  of  the  administration,  curriculum,  and  methods  of  in- 
struction of  the  school  is  the  extent  to  which  they  are  animated 
by  a  social  spirit.  And  the  great  danger  which  threatens 
school  work  is  the  absence  of  conditions  which  make  possible 


41 6  Philosophy  of  Education 

a  permeating  social  spirit ;  this  is  the  great  enemy  of  effec- 
tive moral  training.  For  this  spirit  can  be  actively  present 
only  when  certain  conditions  are  met. 

(i)  In  the  first  place,  the  school  must  itself  be  a  community 
life  in  all  which  that  implies.  Social  perceptions  and  interests 
can  be  developed  only  in  a  genuinely  social  medium  —  one 
where  there  is  give  and  take  in  the  building  up  of  a  common 
experience.  Informational  statements  about  things  can  be  ac- 
quired in  relative  isolation  by  any  one  who  previously  has 
had  enough  intercourse  with  others  to  have  learned  language. 
But  realization  of  the  meaning  of  the  linguistic  signs  is  quite 
another  matter.  That  involves  a  context  of  work  and  play 
in  association  with  others.  The  plea  which  has  been  made 
for  education  through  continued  constructive  activities  in  this 
book  rests  upon  the  fact  they  afford  an  opportunity  for  a  social 
atmosphere.  In  place  of  a  school  set  apart  from  life  as  a  place 
for  learning  lessons,  we  have  a  miniature  social  group  in  which 
study  and  growth  are  incidents  of  present  shared  experience. 
Playgrounds,  shops,  workrooms,  laboratories  not  only  direct 
the  natural  active  tendencies  of  youth,  but  they  involve 
intercourse,  communication,  and  cooperation, — all  extending 
the  perception  of  connections. 

{a)  The  learning  in  school  should  be  continuous  with  that 
out  of  school.  There  should  be  a  free  interplay  between  the 
two.  This  is  possible  only  when  there  are  numerous  points 
of  contact  between  the  social  interests  of  the  one  and  of  the 
other.  A  school  is  conceivable  in  wliich  there  should  be  a 
spirit  of  companionship  and  shared  activity,  but  where  its 
social  life  would  no  more  represent  or  typify  that  of  the  world 
beyond  the  school  wails  than  that  of  a  monastery.  Social 
concern  and  understanding  would  be  developed,  but  they  would 
not  be  available  outside;  they  would  not  carry  over.  The 
proverbial  separation  of  town  and  gown,  the  cultivation  of 
academic  seclusion,  operate  in  this  direction.  So  does  such 
adherence  to  the  culture  of  the  past  as  generates  a  reminiscent 


Theories  of  Morals  417 

social  spirit,  for  this  makes  an  individual  feel  more  at  home  in 
the  life  of  other  days  than  in  his  own.  A  professedly  cultural 
education  is  pecuHarly  exposed  to  this  danger.  An  idealized 
past  becomes  the  refuge  and  solace  of  the  spirit ;  present-day 
concerns  are  found  sordid,  and  unworthy  of  attention.  But  as 
a  rule,  the  absence  of  a  social  environment  in  connection  with 
which  learning  is  a  need  and  a  reward  is  the  chief  reason  for 
the  isolation  of  the  school;  and  this  isolation  renders  school 
knowledge  inapplicable  to  life  and  so  infertile  in  character. 

A  narrow  and  moralistic  view  of  morals  is  responsible  for 
the  failure  to  recognize  that  all  the  aims  and  values  which  are 
desirable  in  education  are  themselves  moral.  Discipline, 
natural  development,  culture,  social  efficiency,  are  moral 
traits  —  marks  of  a  person  who  is  a  worthy  member  of  that 
society  which  it  is  the  business  of  education  to  further.  There 
is  an  old  saying  to  the  effect  that  it  is  not  enough  for  a  man 
to  be  good ;  he  must  be  good  for  something.  The  something 
for  which  a  man  must  be  good  is  capacity  to  live  as  a  social 
member  so  that  what  he  gets  from  hving  with  others  balances 
with  what  he  contributes.  What  he  gets  and  gives  as  a 
human  being,  a  being  with  desires,  emotions,  and  ideas,  is  not 
external  possessions,  but  a  widening  and  deepening  of  con- 
scious Ufe — a  more  intense,  disciplined,  and  expanding  realiza- 
tion of  meanings.  What  he  materially  receives  and  gives  is  at 
most  opportunities  and  means  for  the  evolution  of  conscious 
life.  Otherwise,  it  is  neither  giving  nor  taking,  but  a  shift- 
ing about  of  the  position  of  things  in  space,  like  the  stirring 
of  water  and  sand  with  a  stick.  DiscipUne,  culture,  social 
efficiency,  personal  refinement,  improvement  of  character 
are  but  phases  of  the  growth  of  capacity  nobly  to  share  in 
such  a  balanced  experience.  And  education  is  not  a  mere 
means  to  such  a  life.  Education  is  such  a  life.  To  main- 
tain capacity  for  such  education  is  the  essence  of  morais. 
For  consdous  life  is  a  continual  beginning  afresh. 

3E 


41 8  Philosophy  of  Education 

Summary.  —  The  most  important  problem  of  moral  educa- 
tion in  the  school  concerns  the  relationship  of  knowledge  and 
conduct.  For  unless  the  learning  which  accrues  in  the  regular 
course  of  study  affects  character,  it  is  futile  to  conceive  the 
moral  end  as  the  unifying  and  culminating  end  of  education. 
When  there  is  no  intimate  organic  connection  between  the 
methods  and  materials  of  knowledge  and  moral  growth, 
particular  lessons  and  modes  of  discipline  have  to  be  resorted 
to :  knowledge  is  not  integrated  into  the  usual  springs  of 
action  and  the  outlook  on  life,  while  morals  become  moralistic 
—  a  scheme  of  separate  virtues. 

The  two  theories  chiefly  associated  with  the  separation  of 
learning  from  activity,  and  hence  from  morals,  are  those  which 
cut  off  inner  disposition  and  motive  —  the  conscious  personal 
factor  —  and  deeds  as  purely  physical  and  outer ;  and  which 
set  action  from  interest  in  opposition  to  that  from  principle. 
Both  of  these  separations  are  overcome  in  an  educational 
scheme  where  learning  is  the  accompaniment  of  continuous 
activities  or  occupations  which  have  a  social  aim  and  utilize  the 
materials  of  typical  social  situations.  For  under  such  condi- 
tions, the  school  becomes  itself  a  form  of  social  Ufe,  a  miniature 
community  and  one  in  close  interaction  with  other  modes  of 
associated  experience  beyond  school  walls.  All  education 
which  develops  power  to  share  effectively  in  social  life  is  moral. 
It  forms  a  character  which  not  only  does  the  particular  deed 
socially  necessary  but  one  which  is  interested  in  that  continu- 
ous readjustment  which  is  essential  to  growth.  Interest  m 
learning  from  all  the  contacts  of  life  is  the  essential  moral 
interest. 


INDEX 


Absolute,  philosophic  ideal  of,  67-70,  79. 

Abstract,  good  and  bad  sense  of,  264-265, 
266,  270.     See  also  Concrete. 

Abstract  knowledge,  223. 

Abstraction,  in  Locke's  theories,  312. 

Academic  seclusion,  efiect  of,  416. 

Accommodation,  a  form  of  habituation,  56, 
59,  60.     See  also  Habit. 

Activities,  how  their  meanings  become  ex- 
tended, 243-244,  255,  270;  industrial, 
really  cultural,  338;  mechanical,  58, 
cause  of,  167 ;  practical,  conditions 
making  them  narrow,  190-191,  319; 
school,  under  controlled  conditions,  320. 
See  also  Occupations,  active. 

Activity,  the  freeing  of,  1 23 ;  imagination 
as  well  as  muscles  involved,  277-278 ;  as 
opposed  to  knowledge  —  early  concep- 
tion, 306-3 1 1 ,  modem  theory,  311-317; 
vs.  mind,  402,  405,  the  opposition  recon- 
ciled, 403-404,  418;  motive  divorced 
from  consequences,  402,  405-406;  vs. 
passivity,  in  learning,  390 ;  physical,  his- 
toric reason  for  its  neglect  in  higher  edu- 
cation, 322  ;  purpwsive,  defined  and  illus- 
trated, 403  ;  as  related  to  stimulus,  29- 
30,  73.  See  also  Capricious  activity ; 
Routine. 

Acts,  all  social,  414-415. 

Administration,  school,  its  duty  to  provide 
adequate  facilities,  114;  the  measure  of 
its  worth,  415  ;  as  forming  a  trinity  with 
methods  and  subject  matter,  193. 

/Esthetic  appreciation,  as  determined  by 
environment,  21-22. 

/Esthetic  interests  vs.  economic,  381-383. 

Affection,  in  relation  to  motivation,  147. 

Aim,  conditions  which  make  an  aim  possi- 
ble, 118-119;  nature  of,  117-121,  124- 
126,  129,  205-206,  417,  418. 

Aim  of  education,  as  such,  does  not  exist, 
laj ;  as  stated  at  various  times,  130-131 ; 


defects  and  needs  of  the  time  reflected 
in  stated  aim,  130,  147. 

Aims  in  education,  general  discussion,  117- 
129,  376,  summary,  129;  clash  of  aims 
explained,  160;  not  furnished  by  native 
powers  of  man,  133 ;  general,  use  of,  130, 
144,  285 ;  in  relation  to  interest,  147, 
161 ;  isolated,  origin  of,  388 ;  social,  need 
of  clearer  conception,  113,  conflict  with 
nationalistic,  113,  116;  vocational,  their 
place  in  education,  360-364,  374.  See 
also  Interests ;  Values. 

Aliens,  why  considered  enemies  by  savages, 
99. 

American  public  school  an  assimilative 
force,  26. 

AmiabiUty,  moral  nature  of,  415. 

Animals,  education  of,  14-15. 

"Answers,"  harm  done  by  excessive  zeal 
for,  206. 

Antisocial  nature,  of  man  denied,  28-29; 
of  gangs  or  cliques,  99. 

Antitheses,  see  DuaUsms. 

Apperceiving  organs,  in  Herbart's  theory, 
82. 

Application,  in  Herbart's  theory,  83. 

Appreciation,  the  nature  of,  271-291,  291- 
292 ;  as  wide  in  scope  as  education,  276. 

Apprenticeship,  earUest  form  of,  9;  the 
vocational  education  of  the  past,  364. 

Aristotle,  educational  theories  of,  295-298 ; 
conception  of  exjjerience  and  reason,  306 ; 
on  relation  between  man  and  natiu-e, 
325-326 ;  permanent  truths  in  his  philos- 
ophy, 299;  opposition  to  Plato's  teach- 
ing, 412.  See  also  Athens;  Dualisms; 
Greeks ;  Philosophy ;  Plato ;  Socrates ; 
Sophists. 

Art,  as  exemplifying  ideal  of  interest,  159, 
242 ;  the  use  of,  241.  See  also  Fine  arts; 
Music ;  Painting. 

Artificiality  of  school  learning,  190. 


410 


420 


Index 


Arts,  fine  vs.  industrial,  274,  276,  278. 

Athens,  conditions  in,  as  influencing  phi- 
losophy, 307,  322.  See  also  Aristotle; 
Dualisms ;  Philosophy ;  Plato ;  Socrates  ; 
Sophists. 

Attention,  the  remedy  for  momentary  lack 
of,  410.    See  also  Interest. 

Authority,  vs.  freedom,  340,  357,  390; 
relied  upon  to  save  trouble  of  thinking, 
394- 

Autocracy,  aim  of  education  in,  363. 

Bacon,  Francis,  his  appeal  to  experience, 
3n  ;  attitude  toward  truth,  342;  imion 
of  naturalism  and  humanism,  330-331. 

Balance,  of  powers  in  education,  288-289, 
376;  of  interests,  how  to  attain  better, 
387- 

Barbarian  Europe,  its  culture  not  a  native 
product,  338;  influence  on  education, 
327i  338.  See  a/50  Feudalism ;  Middle 
Ages. 

Beings,  distinction  between  animate  and 
inanimate,  1-4. 

BeUef,  superficial,  negating  responsibility, 
210. 

Beliefs,  vs.  knowledge,  393 ;  revision  after 
Middle  Ages,  34S-346,  3S6. 

Benevolence,  often  dictatorial,  141. 

Biology,  its  contribution  to  a  democratic 
theory  of  knowledge,  401 ;  testimony  to 
the  continuity  of  man  and  nature,  Si3< 
377.  392-393,  to  imequal  natural  en- 
dowment, 137. 

Body  and  mind,  opposition  of,  165-169, 177, 
191,  340,  358,  373,  377.  378,  391;  in 
Aristotle's  theory,  299 ;  interdependence 
shown  by  physiology  and  psychology, 
391^392.  See  also  Dualisms;  Physical 
vs.  psychical. 

Body  w.  soul,  391,402.  5e«  0/50  Dualisms ; 
Physical  vs.  psychical. 

Botany,  connection  with  life,  235. 

Brain,  office  of,  391-392. 

Business,  its  contribution  to  life,  290.  See 
also  Commerce ;  Labor  vs.  leisure ;  Voca- 
tion. 

Capacities,  irregular  development  of,  136. 

See  also  Disposition  ;  Instincts. 
Capacity,  double  meaning  of  word,  49 ;  how 

to  teach  limitation  of,  231,  232. 


Capital  vs.  labor,  the  problem  of  the  day, 
366-367.    See  also  Dualisms. 

Capitalism,  following  upon  industrial  revo- 
lution, 331. 

Capricious  activity,  contrasted  with  educa- 
tive activity  or  experience,  90-91,  361, 
397,  with  continuity,  392,  407,  with 
thoughtful  action,  171, 181 ;  fatal  to  aim, 
119;  negated  by  vocational  aim,  361, 
by  knowledge,  397.  See  also  Activities; 
Activity. 

Carlyle,  on  the  "cash  nexus,"  350. 

Character,  the  aim  of  school  instruction  and 
discipline,  402,  418;  definition,  370;  defi- 
nition of  the  character  which  education 
should  form,  418 ;  why  not  developed  by 
school  education,  184,  221 ;  as  developed 
by  primitive  education,  10 ;  vs.  conduct, 
402,  418;  vs.  intelligence,  410-414,  418. 
See  also  Conduct;  Disposition;  Dual- 
isms. 

Chastity,  moral  nature  of,  415. 

"Check  and  balance"  theory,  see  Balance 
of  powers. 

Child  labor,  prevention  a  social  duty,  230. 

Child  study,  as  modifying  course  of  study, 
228, 368 ;  as  a  guide  to  individual  method, 
203.     See  also  Psychology. 

Childhood,  a  positive  not  a  negative  state, 
49-50,  59.  63. 

Christianity,  as  refuge  from  the  world,  405. 

Church,  influence  on  education,  327,  338; 
conflict  with  science,  381. 

Civilization,  its  factors,  44-45. 

Class  distinctions,  in  Plato's  philosophy, 
102-106,  112,  115,  305;  in  feudalism, 
142,  in  eighteenth  centiuy,  107,  137, 
138,  n';  in  Hegel's  philosophy,  70;  at 
present,  98,  113— 114,  160,  191,  294,  300, 
304,  363 ;  paraUeled  in  educational  world, 
160,  290-291,  292,  in  conflict  of  applied 
and  pure  science,  268-269,  in  distinction 
between  rational  and  empirical  knowl- 
edge, 389,  in  various  other  duaUsms, 
377,  388,  400-401 ;  danger  that  voca- 
tional education  may  perpetuate,  139- 
140,  371-373,  possibility  that  it  may 
obliterate,  373-374.  See  also  Sodal 
situation. 

Commerce,  as  a  socializing  force,  349.  Se€ 
also  Business ;  Labor  vs.  leisure ;  Voa- 
tioa. 


Index 


421 


Communication,  definition,  11,  255 ;  always 
educative,  6-7,  11 ;  extending  the  mean- 
ing of  experience,  255  ;  making  possible 
the  continuance  of  society,  3-6,  1 1 ;  cri- 
terion of  its  value,  219. 

Community,  definition,  5-6;  conditions 
making  possible,  29 ;  not  one  body  but 
many,  loosely  connected,  24-26,  94-97. 

Complex  vs.  simple,  false  notion  of,  234. 

Compulsory  education,  system  of,  first 
undertaken  by  Germany,  112. 

Concern,  see  Interest. 

Concrete,  must  progress  to  abstract,  315- 
316.    See  also  Abstract. 

Conduct,  as  determined  by  knowledge, 
412-414,  418;  relation  to  philosophy, 
37&-379.  387.  See  also  Character ;  Dis- 
fwsition. 

Confidence,  a  trait  of  good  method,  205. 

Conformity,  not  equivalent  to  imiformity, 
60;  the  essence  of  education  in  Hegel's 
philosophy,  69. 

Connections  of  an  object,  made  evident 
by  education,  246;  as  determining  re- 
sponse to  it,  396;  means  for  learning, 
416. 

Conscience,  vs.  consciousness,  411 ;  intui- 
tions of,  406. 

Consciousness,  definition,  121;  accen- 
tuated by  blocking  of  instincts  and 
habits,  404;  not  independent,  164;  as 
equivalent  term  for  "mind,"  342-343- 

Consensus,  origin,  6. 

Consequences  of  action,  vs.  its  motive,  402, 
405-406,  418.    See  also  Dualisms. 

Conservatism  vs.  progressiveness,  381-383, 
390,  401 ;   in  education,  81-93. 

Consistency,  definition,  379. 

Continuity,  of  inanimate  things,  i,  of  indi- 
vidual life,  2,  of  social  life,  35,  of  beings 
with  their  environment,  13,  333 ;  vs. 
dualism,  388-395.     See  also  Dualisms. 

Control,  as  a  function  of  education,  28,  48, 
90,  397.  401 ;  means  of,  39-40,  47,  73 ; 
resulting  in  growth,  1-2 ;  in  Herbart's 
theory,  82 ;  vs.  freedom,  340,  356-357 ; 
social,  indirect  vs.  direct,  32,  33,  47  ;  vari- 
able, importance  of,  53-54,  62.  See  also 
Conservatism  ;  Freedom  ;  Individuality. 

Coordination  of  responses,  74,  75,  78. 

Cosmopolitanism,  the  eighteenth  century 
tendency  toward,  106,  as  voiced  by  Kant. 


iio-iii;    defects  of,  113;    yielding  to 

nationalism,  109. 

Credulity,  human  proneness  to,  222. 

Criteria,  of  subject  matter,  78,  292 ;  of  a 
society,  96-110, 115.     See  also  Standards. 

Cultural  aspect  of  any  study,  the  educa- 
tional center  of  gravity,  249. 

Cultural  or  liberal  education,  one  of  the 
dangers  of,  416-417;  as  made  illiberal, 
226;  so  called,  really  vocational,  364- 
366.  See  also  Culture ;  Intellectual  vs. 
practical  studies ;  Vocational  aspects  of 
education. 

Culture,  as  aim  of  education,  142-144,  271, 
376,  summary,  144-145 ;  cause  of  dif- 
ferences in,  43-45;  vs.  efficiency,  142- 
144,  144-14S,  159-160,  373,  377,  385, 
389,  historical  and  social  explanation 
of  the  opposition,  i6o-i6i,  293-298, 
30s.  388-389;  traditional  idea  of,  143, 
358,  to  be  modified,  114;  definition  of 
true,  14s;  a  moral  trait,  417.  See  also 
Education. 

Culture-epoch  theory,  see  Education,  as 
recapitulation. 

Curiosity,  cause  and  effect,  344;  nature, 
24s,  391- 

Curriculum,  in  relation  to  aims  and  in- 
terests, 271-291,  summary,  291-292; 
place  of  play  and  work  in,  228-241,  sum- 
mary, 241-242,  243-244;  requisites  for 
planning,  225-227 ;  false  standards  for 
its  composition,  286-291 ;  reasons  foi 
constant  criticism  and  revision,  283; 
measure  of  its  worth,  415. 

Custom,  criticism  of,  basis  of  Athenian 
philosophy,  306,  307,  322. 

Democracy,  true,  characteristics  of,  100- 
102, 115, 142-143,  300,  357,  369-370,  374, 
401,  414;  criteria  for  the  curriculum  in, 
225-226,  338,  339 ;  duty  of  education  in, 
139-140,  292 ;  humanism  of  science  in, 
268 ;  proper  theory  of  knowledge  in,  401 ; 
reorganization  of  education  required  in, 
300,  305,  386 ;  increasing  respect  for  alt 
labor  in,  366. 

Democratic  conception  in  education,  94- 
115,  summary,  115-116,  375-376. 

Dependence,  a  positive  power,  50-52 ; 
habit  of  dependence  upon  cues,  67.  Set 
also  Infancy,  prolonged. 


422 


Index 


Descartes,  the  philosophy  of,  350,  348-349 ; 
a  rejector  of  tradition,  344. 

Development,  as  aim  of  education,  131- 
138,  144,  interpreted  as  unfolding,  not 
growth,  6s,  79,  superseded  by  idea  of  dis- 
cipline, no;  arrested,  one  cause  of,  59, 
61,  62,  206;  natural  development,  its  re- 
lation to  culture,  142,  a  moral  trait,  417. 

Dialectic  methods,  influence  on  education, 
327-328;  the  waning  of,  368,  369 ;  giving 
way  to  experimental  method,  395. 

Differences,  individual,  see  Individuality ; 
Variations,  individual. 

Difficulty,  proper  degree  of,  in  a  school 
problem,  184. 

Direction,  as  a  function  of  education,  28- 
47,  summary,  47-48;  E)Ower  of,  de- 
veloped by  educative  experiences,  90, 397, 
401 ;   social,  modes  of,  31-40,  47. 

Directness,  a  trait  of  individual  method, 
204-205,  211. 

Discernment,  in  Locke's  theories,  312;  in 
those  of  his  successors,  313. 

Discipline  as  aim  of  education,  social  ex- 
planation of,  160;  attempt  to  reconcile 
with  culture,  no;  vs.  interest,  146-161, 
376,  summary,  161-162,  false  conception 
of,  156, 157, origin  of  this  conception,  198 ; 
meaning,  150,  151-152,  161-162,  208;  a 
moral  trait,  417;  external,  and  double- 
mindedness,  209,  proper  substitutes  for, 
228,  276,  to  issue  in  character,  402,  418, 
to  be  modified  in  democratic  education, 
114.  See  also  Formal  discipline ;  Govern- 
ment, school ;  Interest. 

Disinterested  action,  common  interpreta- 
tion of,  407. 

Disposition,  definition  of,  13,  379;  in  rela- 
tion to  democracy,  115;  power  to  im- 
prove social  conditions,  160;  habitual, 
fixes  one's  real  standards,  275-276; 
foimdation  of  power  to  develop,  53,  54; 
influenced  by  every  act,  415,  by  associa- 
tion, 26-27,  34,  40,  by  habit,  57,  by  use 
of  physical  conditions,  38,  40,  by  schools, 
4,  26 ;  mental  and  moral,  how  to  change, 
212,  370,  effect  of  subject  matter  upon, 
81 ;  social,  means  of  attaining,  47,  231- 
237,  241.     See  also  Character. 

Dogma,  a  crutch  to  save  thinking,  394. 

Doing  vs.  knowing,  340,  378,  385,  391 ;  re- 
lation made  dear  by  experimental  sdeuce. 


321-322,  323.  See  also  Activity ;  Dual< 
isms ;  Knowledge  as  derived  from  doing. 

Donaldson,  quoted,  on  irregularity  of 
growth,  136. 

Double-mindedness,  as  a  result  of  bad 
method,  207-209. 

Dramatizations,  value  in  school  work,  190. 

Drawing,  its  prime  function  in  education, 
278-279.     See  also  Art. 

Drill  exercises,  to  form  habits,  312 ;  undue 
emphasis  upon,  60,209;  weakness  of,  i6i. 

Drudgery,  how  different  from  work,  240- 
241. 

Dualism,  and  formal  discipline,  72,  76-77, 
80;   vs.  continuity,  388-395,  400-401. 

Dualisms,  educational  results,  340;  origin 
and  remedy,  377;  reflection  in  theories 
of  morals,  402.  See  also  Activity  and 
knowledge ;  Activity  vs.  mind ;  Au- 
thority vs.  freedom  ;  Body  and  mind ; 
Body  vs.  soul ;  Capital  vs.  labor  ;  Charac- 
ter vs.  conduct ;  Character  vs.  intelli- 
gence ;  Conservatism  vs.  progressiveness ; 
Culture  vs.  efficiency ;  Discipline  vs.  in- 
terest ;  Doing  vs.  knowing ;  Dualism ; 
Duty  w.  interest ;  Emotions  vs.  intellect ; 
Ends  vs.  means ;  Environment  and 
heredity ;  Experience  vs.  knowledge ; 
Habit  vs.  knowledge ;  Himianism  vs. 
naturalism ;  Individual  and  the  world ; 
Individuality  vs.  institutionalism ;  In- 
tellectual vs.  practical  studies;  Inner 
vs.  outer ;  Logical  vs.  psychological 
method ;  Man  and  nature ;  Matter  vs. 
mind ;  Method  vs.  subject  matter ; 
Nature  vs  nurture;  Objective  vs. 
subjective  knowledge ;  Particular  vs. 
general ;  Philosophy ;  Physical  vs. 
psychical ;  Practice  vs.  theory ;  Ra- 
tionalism vs.  empiricism  or  sensational- 
ism ;  Thinking  and  experience ;  Think- 
ing vs.  knowledge. 

Dualistic  systems,  origin  of,  189-190;  pur- 
pose of,  378. 

Duty  vs.  interest,  407-410,  418.  Su  mIs» 
Dualisms. 

Economic  conditions,  present,  tendency 
of,  114;  education,  a  means  of  reform, 
304- 

Economic  interests,  vs.  scientific  or  (ea* 
thetic,  381-383. 


Index 


423 


Economics,  to  be  included  in  vocational 
education,  372. 

Education,  as  conservative  and  progres- 
sive, 8i-g2,  summary,  92-93;  demo- 
cratic conception  in,  94-115,  summary, 
1 1 5-1 16;  importance  in  a  democracy, 
304-305,  338 ;  as  direction  or  guidance, 
28-47,  375,  summary,  47-48;  as  its  own 
end,  5^-60,  62,  362 ;  the  essence  of,  84, 
362 ;  as  formation,  81-84,  summary,  92- 
93 ;  as  growth,  49-62,  63,  65,  375,  sum- 
mary, 62 ;  as  national  and  social,  108- 
115,  116;  as  a  necessity  of  life,  i-ii,  12, 
375,  summary,  11;  in  the  philosophy  of 
Plato,  102-106,  112,  115,  140,  of  eight- 
eenth century,  106-108,  115-116;  inti- 
mate connection  with  philosophy,  383- 
387;  why  practice  lags  behind  theory, 
46-47 ;  as  preparation,  63-65,  375,  sum- 
niary,  79;  prospective  vs.  retrospective 
conception  of,  92-93;  as  recapitulation 
and  retrospection,  84-89,  smnmary,  93; 
as  reconstruction,  89-92,  summary,  93; 
as  a  social  function,  3,  11,  12-26,  47-48, 
94,  112,  115,  375,  summary,  26-27;  as 
means  of  socid  reform,  108,  160-161, 
304-305, 313,  370,  374 ;  as  imfolding,  65- 
70,  81,  375,  summary,  79 ;  various  defini- 
tions, 10,  12,  55,  59,  technical  definition, 
89-90,  93,  contrast  with  one-sided  con- 
ceptions, 91-92 ;  the  highest  view  of,  417. 
Set  also  Cultural  education ;  Elementary 
education ;  Formal  discipline ;  Formal 
education ;  Higher  education ;  Informal 
education ;  Moral  education ;  Primitive 
education ;  Training ;  Vocational  edu- 
cation. 

Efficiency,  scientific,  definition,  194;  wider 
view  of,  98-99. 

Efficiency,  social,  as  aim  of  education,  109- 
iio,  138-141,  144-145,  271,  291;  defini- 
tion, 141,  144;  democratic  vs.  aristo- 
cratic ideal  of,  142 ;  a  moral  trait,  417. 
See  also  Culture,  vs.  efficiency. 

Egoism  of  childhood,  28,  52. 

Elementary  education,  inconsistency  of, 
301 ;  narrow  utilitarianism  of,  i6o,  226. 
See  also  Education. 

Elements,  not  necessarily  "simple,"  234. 

Emerson,  quoted,  61-62. 

Emotions,  in  relation  to  environment,  147 ; 
M.  intellect,  390-391.  See  also  Dualiaias. 


Empirical,  two  meanings  of,  163-264;  as 
equivalent  to  "trial  and  error"  and  rulo- 
of-thumb,  308. 

Empiricism,  defects  of,  314-317;  a  school 
of  method,  395,  399-400,  401 ;  its  serv- 
ice to  school  instruction,  313-314,  322; 
transformed  into  sensationalism,  312- 
313.  See  also  Dualisms;  Quackery; 
Rationalism  vs.  empiricism. 

Empty-mindedness,  vs.  open-mindedness, 
206. 

Emulation,  as  related  to  control,  34. 

Ends,  vs.  means,  124,  402;  as  continuous 
with  means,  377 ;  in  relation  to  interest, 
149-150,  161;  vs.  results,  117-118.  See 
also  Dualisms. 

Environment,  adult's  vs.  child's,  60; 
chance  vs.  chosen,  as  educative,  22,  26- 
27,  44,  320;  control  by  living  beings, 
i~2,  73;  function  of,  15-22,  26-27,  28- 
31,  33,  36,  44-48,  65,  133,  147,  344;  in 
relation  to  habit,  55-56,  62,  212;  Her- 
bart's  view  of,  83-84 ;  relation  to  hered- 
ity, 87-88;  theory  of  its  interference 
with  development,  66,  79;  nature  and 
meaning,  12-19,  26-27,  33-40;  dose  re- 
lation of  physical  and  social,  33-39; 
Rousseau's  idea  of  education  apart  from, 
138;  fields  of  strongest  unconscious  in- 
fluence, 21-22;  study  of,  a  guide  to  in- 
dividual method,  203-204.  See  also 
Dualisms ;  School  as  a  special  environ- 
ment ;   Stimulus. 

Epistemology,  development  of,  342-343, 
356. 

Equipment,  lack  of,  how  to  compensate 
for,  191. 

Examinations,  the  need  of,  391. 

Experience,  availability  in  later  experi- 
ences, 396,  396-397 ;  check  and  balance 
theory  of,  288,  376,  387;  continuity 
through  renewal,  2-3,  11;  individual, 
how  it  absorbs  experience  of  others,  7,  9, 
244,  25s,  270,  272 ;  how  harmed  by 
mechanical  teaching,  245  ;  vs.  knowledge, 
early  conception,  306-311,  322,  modem 
theory,  311-317,  318,  323;  measure  of 
value,  164 ;  mediated  vs.  immediate,  271- 
273;  nature  of,  163-169,  177,  192,  316, 
3i7i  319-320,  323;  its  quality  to  b< 
changed  by  education,  12,  26,  92;  ot 
pupil  not  to  be  assumed,  180,  197-19$. 


424 


Index 


273 ;  reconstruction  of,  92 ;  in  school 
room,  as  prompting  recent  reforms  in 
course  of  study,  228 ;  place  of  science  in, 
261-267 ;  shared,  gives  rise  to  meaning, 
17-19,  26;  proving  unity  of  subject 
matter  and  method,  195-196.  See  also 
Activity ;  Capricious  activity ;  Dual- 
isms ;  Experimental  method ;  Experi- 
mentation ;  Reconstruction ;  Routine ; 
Thinking  and  experience. 

Experimental  method,  connection  with  oc- 
cupations, 237,  267  ;  consequences  of  lack 
of,  in  Greece,  341 ;  origin,  237  ;  as  trans- 
forming the  philosophy  of  experience, 
319,  the  theory  of  knowledge,  393-305. 
401.  See  also  Experimentation  ;  Labo- 
ratory work  ;  Logical  method  ;  Method, 
as  defining  science  ;  Science. 

Experimentation,  317-322,  323.  See  also 
Experience. 

Evolution,  biological,  and  Hegel's  idealism, 
69-70;  as  clinching  proof  of  continuity, 
392-393- 

Faculties,  as  explained  by  Herbart,  81-82  ; 

in  Locke's  theory,  71,  73,  77,  80. 
Faculty    psychology,    286-287.     See    also 

Formal  discipline. 
Feeling,  a  social  mode  of  behavior,  14. 
Feudalism,    division    of    classes    in,    142 ; 

doomed  by  science,  331.     See  also  Bar- 
barian Europe ;  Middle  Ages. 
Fichte,    relation   between   individual   and 

state,  111-112. 
Finality  of  experience,  defi^ned,  380. 
Fine   a^ ts,   Aristotle's  view   of,    296-297 ; 

place  in  the  curriculum,  278-279,  292; 

vs.  industrial  arts,  274,  276,  278.    See  also 

Art. 
Fiske,  John,  and  doctrine  of  prolonged  in 

fancy,  54,  n^. 
Focusing,  an  aspect  of  directive  action,  30, 

47,  74- 

Formal  discipline,  the  counterpart  of 
scholastic  method,  399 ;  doctrine  stated 
70-73,  criticized,  73-79,  80 ;  as  an  edu- 
cational value,  271,  286-287;  remedy 
for  its  evils,  155-156,  158-159;  value  of 
particular  studies,  286-287.  See  Dis- 
cipline; Education. 

Formal  education,  its  place,  7-1 1 ;  its 
dangers,  9-1 1,  272;   criterion  of  value, 


62.    See  also  Education;  Formal  disc^ 

pline ;  School. 
"Formal  steps"  in  teaching,  82-83. 
Formulation,  value  of,  265-266,  270. 
Freedom,  economic,  results  of  lack  of,  160; 

in  school,  true  and  false,  352-356,  357; 

vs.  concern  for  order,  381-383.     See  also 

Authority ;     Conservatism ;      Control ; 

Dualisms ;  Individuality. 
Froebel,  emphasis  on  natural  principles  of 

growth,  136;  strength  and  weakness  of, 

67-68,  79. 

Galileo,  and  the  rejection  of  tradition,  344. 

Games,  value  in  school  work,  190. 

Gardens,  value  in  school  work,  190,  235, 
259,  m. 

General,  see  Particular  vs.  general. 

Generality  of  subject  matter  and  of 
method,  378,  379,  380. 

Generalization,  in  Locke's  theories,  312; 
value  of,  265,  270. 

Geography  as  a  study,  defined,  246,  248; 
home  geography,  248-249 ;  as  including 
nature  study,  246,  250. 

Geography  and  history,  complementary 
subjects,  246-250,  255;  evils  of  mechan- 
ical use  of,  245 ;  their  significance,  243- 
255,  376,  summary,  255 ;  principle  gov- 
erning choice  of  subject  matter  in,  246- 
247,  249.     See  also  History. 

German  states,  Herbartianism  in,  85; 
state-supported  education,  108-109,  112. 

God,  identified  by  Rousseau  with  Nature, 
134- 

Goethe,  appreciation  of  institutions,  69. 

Good  will,  chief  constituent  of  social  efiB- 
ciency,  141. 

Government,  school,  as  distinct  from  in- 
struction, 352,  357.  See  also  Discipline, 
external. 

Greeks,  appreciation  of  institutions,  70; 
identification  of  art  and  sdence,  229 ;  ex- 
planation of  success  in  education,  166,  of 
intellectual  and  artistic  eminence,  45 ; 
individualists,  356 ;  relation  between  in- 
telligence and  desire  in  their  philosophy, 
295,  305,  between  man  and  nature,  324, 
338;  distinction  between  liberal  and 
utilitarian  education,  293-298,  302,  303, 
305;  social  environment  of,  321;  view 
of  mind,  340-341 ;  the  first  philosophers, 


i 


Index 


425 


385.  See  also  Aristotle ;  Athens ;  Dual- 
isms ;  Philosophy  ;  Plato ;  Socrates ; 
Sophists. 

Growth,  by  control  of  environment,  1-2; 
irregularity  of,  136;  as  requiring  time, 
149. 

Growth,  intellectual,  adult  vs.  child,  89; 
capacity  for,  conditions  of  retention,  206 ; 
attention  to  conditions  of,  necessary  in 
education,  1 2  ;  definition,  49,  206 ;  di- 
vorce of  process  and  product,  88-89; 
Froebel's  idea  of,  67-68,  79;  requisites 
for,  206,  400,  418;  vocation  an  organiz- 
ing principle  of,  362 ;  intellectual  and 
moral,  the  universal  vocation,  362-363 ; 
moral,  its  connection  with  knowledge, 
418.  See  also  Development ;  Education, 
as  growth  ;  Education,  as  imfolding. 

Guidance  as  a  function  of  education,  28-48. 

Habit,  vs.  knowledge,  395-396;  vs.  prin- 
ciple, 409-410.  See  also  Dualisms; 
Habituation. 

Habits,  blind,  35-36;  blocked,  accentuate 
consciousness,  404 ;  common  understand- 
ing of  the  word,  57-59,  60;  formation 
in  animals,  15,  in  hiunan  beings,  16,  56; 
as  expressions  of  growth,  54-59,  62 ;  to 
be  made  tastes,  276. 

Habituation,  defijiition,  55,  62.  See  also 
Accommodation  ;  Habit ;  Habits. 

Happiness,  key  to,  360. 

Hatch,  quoted  on  Greek  influence,  326, 
criticism,  327. 

Health,  an  aim  of  education,  134-135. 

Hedonism,  405-406. 

Hegel,  doctrine  of  the  Absolute,  67,  68-70, 
79-80;  relation  between  individual  and 
state,  111-112;  the  philosophy  of,  350- 

351. 

Helvetius,  believer  in  oninipotence  of  edu- 
cation, 313. 

Herbart,  theory  of  presentations,  81-83, 93 ; 
criticism  of,  83-84,  93. 

Herder,  appreciation  of  institutions,  69. 

Heredity,  false  idea  of,  86-87 ;  relation  to 
environment,  87-88. 

Higher  education,  narrow  discipline  or  cul- 
ture in,  160;  inconsistency  of,  301.  See 
also  Education. 

History, biographical  approach,  251 ;  defini- 
tion, 246;  economic  or  industrial,  251- 


253 ;  ethical  value  of,  254-255 ;  intel- 
lectual, 253-254;  methods  of  teaching, 
251-255  ;  as  related  to  present  social  life, 
250-255;  primitive  life  as  introduction 
to,  252 ;  to  be  included  in  vocational 
education,  372.  See  also  Geography; 
Geography  and  history. 

Honesty,  intellectual,  how  lost,  207-208; 
moral  nature  of,  415. 

Human  association,  implications  of,  94-100. 

Humanism  vs.  naturalism  in  education, 
267-269,  324-339,  373-374-  See  also 
Dualisms. 

Humanity,  the  ideal  of  eighteenth  century 
philosophers,  106,  109,  115;  as  voiced 
by  Kant,  iio-iii,  defects  of  the  concep. 
tion,  113. 

Humor,  teacher's  sense  of,  crippled,  391, 

Hypotheses,  in  scientific  method,  318. 

Idealism,  395,  401 ;  institutional,  no,  111, 

116.    See  also  Institutionalism ;    Insti< 

tutions. 
Ideas,    not   directly    communicable,    188; 

definition,  188-189,  210;  use  in  thinking, 

186;   vs.  words,  168-169. 
Ignorance,  importance  of  a  consciousness 

of,  222. 
Illiterate,  as  equivalent  to  uncultivated, 

272. 
Imagination,  as  affected  by  living  together, 

7;    the  medium  of  appreciation,    276; 

agencies  for  developing,  276-277;    nm- 

ning  loose,  404-405. 
Imaginative  vs.  imaginary,  276. 
Imitation,  as  related  to  control,  34 ;  of  ends 

vs.  of  means,  42-43;    and  social  psy- 
chology, 40-43. 
Immaturity,  meaning  of,  49-50,  55,  n^,  60, 

61,  62,  63  ;   advantage  of,  85. 
Indirect  education,  see  Informal  education. 
Individual,  the,  his  role  in  knowledge,  346 ; 

and  the  world,  340-356,  358,  377,  378, 

385,  summary,  356-357- 
Individualism,  economic  and  political,  341 ; 

in  Locke's  philosophy,  72;    moral,  347; 

philosophical  interpretation  of,  344-345, 

356 ;  purpose  of,  401 ;  religious,  of  Middle 

Ages,  341-342  ;   true,  its  origin,  356. 
Individualistic  ideal  of  eighteenth  century, 

106-108,   112,   115-116;    as  voiced  by 

Kant,  IIO-III. 


426 


Index 


Individuality,  double  meaning,  353-354; 
the  essence  of,  142 ;  vs.  institutionalism, 
381-383 ;  recognition  of,  in  school  work, 
153;  vs.  social  control,  340,  356-357. 
See  also  Dualisms. 

Inductive  methods  of  knowing,  replacing 
deductive,  343-344- 

Industrial  competency,  as  an  aim  of  edu- 
cation, 139-140. 

Industrial  vs.  educational  conditions, 
modem,  303-304. 

Industrial  education,  see  Vocational  edu- 
cation. 

Industrial  occupations,  recent  increase  in 
importance,  366-367,  368,  374. 

Industrial  revolution,  cause  of,  331 ;  as 
necessitating  educational  reconstruction, 
386;   as  widening  humanism,  337. 

Industry,  now  scientific,  367-368,  374. 

Infancy,  prolonged,  doctrine  of,  54.  See 
also  Dependence. 

Inference,  the  nature  of,  186. 

Informal  education,  7-10,  19-22,  26-27, 
31-40,  212,  230. 

Information,  sugar-coated,  65 ;  as  an  end 
of  school  work,  179,  185-186. 

Information  studies  par  excellence,  246. 

Initiation  ceremonies,  their  purpose,  8, 
213. 

Initiative,  developed  by  opportunity  for 
mistakes,  231 ;  failure  to  develop,  60,  80 ; 
importance  in  a  democracy,  102,  116. 

Inner  vs.  outer,  402-407,  418.  See  also 
Dualisms ;  Objective. 

Instincts,  blocked,  accentuate  conscious- 
ness, 404;  improper  treatment  of,  60. 
See  Capacities;  Disposition. 

Institutionalism  vs.  individuality,  381-383. 

Institutions,  evU,  as  offsetting  good  schools, 
138;  in  Hegel's  philosophy,  68-70,  79; 
the  measure  of  their  worth,  7-8;  the 
stronghold  of  humanistic  tradition,  329. 

Instruction,  to  issue  in  character,  402,  418 ; 
as  the  means  of  education,  81 ;  statement 
of  the  problem  of,  155. 

Instnmiental  vs.  intrinsic  values,  279-280, 
292. 

Integrity,  intellectual,  how  lost,  207-208. 

Intellect  vs.  emotions,  390-391.  See  also 
Dualisms. 

Intellectual  vs.  practical  studies,  306-322, 
summary,  322-323.    See  also  Cultural 


education;  Dualisms;  Vocational  edu> 
cation. 

Intellectualism,  abstract,  348-349. 

Intellectuality,  one-sided,  151,  i6t. 

Intelligence,  vs.  character,  410-414,  418; 
illiberal,  160. 

Interest,  as  making  control  social,  37-39; 
divided,  cause  and  results  of,  207-209; 
false  idea  of,  148-149,  340,  407-408; 
origin  of  false  conception  of,  198 ;  its  re- 
lation to  the  conditions  of  occupation, 
362 ;  philosophic  bsisis  of  depreciation 
of,  391 ;  another  name  for  self,  408.  See 
also  Attention;  Discipline  vs.  interest; 
Duty  vs.  interest;  Dualisms. 

Interests,  moral  question  of  organization 
of,  291 ;  to  be  seized  at  proper  moment, 
136.    See  also  Aims;  Values.  1 

Intrinsic  vs.  instrumental  values,  279-280, 
292. 

Inventions,  due  to  science,  261-262. 

Inventiveness,  lost  by  formal  discipline,  80. 

Judgment,  as  conceived  by  Locke's  fol- 
lowers, 313;  developed  by  opportunity 
to  make  mistakes,  231. 

Kant,  appreciation  of  institutions,  69 ;  di- 
vorce of  morality  from  conduct,  405 ;  the 
individual-cosmopolitan  ideal  of,  iio- 
III ;  reason  the  only  proper  moral 
motive,  411. 

Kindergarten,  proper  material  for,  232, 
233;  games,  too  symbolic,  238;  tech- 
nique, defects  of,  180-181,  231. 

Knowing  vs.  doing,  see  Doing  vs.  knowing. 

Knowledge,  as  an  object  of  aesthetic  con- 
templation, 397-398;  vs.  belief,  393; 
definition,  396;  as  derived  from  doing, 
217-218,  227,  229,  241,  early  conception 
of  opposition,  306-311,  modem  theory, 
311-322,  323;  experimental,  367-368, 
393 ;  false  conception  of,  153,  reason  for< 
160;  function,  395 ;  future  reference  of, 
397-398 ;  vs.  habit,  395-396 ;  how  made 
humanistic,  269;  vs.  learning,  175,  38s» 
389-390;  as  pragmatically  defined,  400; 
rationalized  as  science,  221-224;  school^ 
lack  of  functioning  power,  398 ;  vs.  social 
interests,  340;  theories  of,  388-400, 
summary,  400-401 ;  both  end  and  means 
of  thinking,  174,  185-186,  345,  380-381, 


Index 


427 


385;  true  and  second-hand,  412-414; 
relation  to  Wrtue,  410-414, 418 ;  vocation 
an  organizing  principle  for,  362.  See 
also  Dualisms. 

Labor,  vs.  capital,  the  problem  of  the  day, 
366-367;  vs.  leisure,  293-305,  340,  358, 
373.  377.  390,  391,  siunmary,  305.  See 
also  Dualisms ;  Leisure. 

Laboratory  work,  basic  function  in  a  new 
field,  273-274;  educative  value,  190,  416, 
measure  of,  277  ;  proper  conditions,  321- 
322,  material,  232,  233,  time,  322.  See 
also  Experimental  method ;  Experimenta- 
tion ;  Logical  method  ;  Method,  as  defin- 
ing science ;  Science,  improper  method. 

Language,  acquisition  a  model  of  educative 
growth,  133  ;  as  an  appliance  of  educa- 
tion, 45-46,  48,  271-272,  416;  office  in 
the  conveyance  of  knowledge,  17-19; 
habits  fixed  by  environment,  2 1 ;  as  show- 
ing relation  between  heredity  and  en- 
vironment, 87-88;  as  means  of  social 
direction,  39,  48. 

Learning,  two  meanings  of,  389-390; 
necessity  of  the  process,  4,  7 ;  the  process 
not  an  isolated  end,  198-199,  205 ;  rela- 
tion of  the  process  to  knowledge,  175, 
385;  passivity  vs.  activity  in,  390,  418; 
in  school,  continuous  with  learning  out 
of  school,  416,  418.  See  also  Dualisms; 
Doing  vs.  knowing;  Knowledge. 

Leisure,  as  opposed  to  livelihood,  306-311. 
See  also  Dualisms ;  Labor  vs.  leisure. 

Lessing,  appreciation  of  institutions,  69. 

Liberal  culture  or  education,  see  Cultural 
aspect ;  Cultural  education ;  Culture. 

Life,  varying  content  of  word,  2,  14;  as 
meaning  growth,  61,  62 ;  conceived  as  a 
patchwork,  288;  renewal  of ,  1-4,  11,  12; 
static  vs.  dynamic  interpretation,  66 ;  as 
an  unfolding,  65. 

Likemindedness,  cause  of,  42 ;  defined  and 
illustrated,  5,  36-38;  mode  of  obtaining, 
13- 

Literature,  its  place  in  the  curriculimi,  278- 
279,  292;  inconsistent  treatment  of, 
302. 

Livelihood,  as  opposed  to  leisure,  306-311. 
See  also  Labor  vs.  leisure. 

Locke,  and  formal  discipline,  71-73,  312- 
313 ;  attitude  toward  truth,  342. 


Logic,  formal,  a  generalization  of  scholastic 
method,  399. 

Logical  vs.  psychological  method,  256-261, 
269,  334-336.  See  also  Dualisms;  Ex- 
perimental method;  Laboratory  work. 
Method,  as  defining  science;  Organiza- 
tion of  subject  matter. 

Man  and  nature,  dualism  of,  340,  378,  385 ; 
interdependence,  246,  247,  267,  333-334 ; 
origin  of  idea  of  separation,  329-333,  338, 
377;  reunion  promised  by  dawn  ot 
science,  338-339,  not  yet  realized  in  the 
curriculum,  324.     See  Dualisms. 

Manual  activities,  measure  of  educative 
value,  277  ;  one-sided  use  of,  190. 

Manual  training,  traditional,  defects  of, 
231 ;  proper  material  for,  232,  233.  See 
also  Vocational  education. 

Marking  system,  why  emphasized,  276; 
need  of,  391. 

Materialism  vs.  social  eflBdcncy,  143.  See 
also  Realism. 

Mathematics,  its  value  as  subject  matter, 
287. 

Matter  vs.  mind,  iS3-iS5.  I93.  299,  377, 
378.     See  also  Dualisms. 

Manners,  as  fixed  by  environment,  21. 

Meaning,  how  acts  come  to  have,  17-19,  26, 
90,  93,  397,  401 ;  as  making  an  act 
mental,  35,  36,  315. 

Meanings  of  activities,  the  extension  of, 
243-244,  255,  270,  417. 

Means,  see  Ends  vs.  means. 

Mediocrity,  bred  by  uniform  general 
method,  203. 

Method,  defined,  193,  211;  dialectical, 
327-328;  essentials  of,  179-192,  smn- 
mary,  192 ;  as  general  and  individual, 
200-203,  211;  generality  of,  378,  379; 
genetic,  the  principle  of,  251 ;  Herbart's 
service  to,  82-83;  individual,  traits  of, 
203-210,  211;  of  leamuig  as  well  as  of 
teaching,  201,  202  ;  mechanical,  199-201, 
cause,  60,  167,  206,  211,  remedy,  277; 
school  vs.  extra-school,  354;  schools  of, 
395-400,  summary,  400-401 ;  as  defin- 
ing science,  224,  256;  vs.  subject  matter, 
340,  390,  unity  of  the  two,  193-200,  211, 
377;  totality  of,  378,  379-380,  381; 
traditional,  modification  needed  in  a 
democraor,  114;   ultimateness  of,  378, 


428 


Index 


379,  380.    See  also  Dualisms;    Experi- 
mental method;    Logical  method. 
Methods,  the  measure  of  their  worth,  202, 

415- 

Middle  Ages,  social  environment,  321 ; 
view  of  mind,  340-341.  See  also  Bar- 
barian Europe. 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  on  work  of  schools,  394. 

Mind,  definition,  39,  120,  370;  doctrine 
of  its  sameness  in  all  persons,  137,  202 ; 
as  formed  before  school  life,  39;  as 
"formed"  by  education,  81,  82,  93  ;  not 
an  independent  entity,  153-155,  162,  164, 
167-168;  as  purely  individual,  340-343, 
356 ;  individual,  as  agent  of  reorganiza- 
tion, 343-351,  377;  narrowing  or  pervert- 
ing of,  159-160;  "objective,"  69;  con- 
sidered as  purely  receptive,  312;  social- 
ized, definition,  40,  how  attained,  141, 
the  method  of  social  control,  40.  See 
also  Dualisms. 

Mind-wandering,  one  way  to  encourage, 
277. 

Mistakes,  children's,  how  useful  in  school 
work,  231-232. 

Montaigne,  attitude  toward  truth,  342. 

Montessori  system,  criticism  of  material 
used,  232,  of  technique,  1 80-181. 

Moral,  its  identification  with  the  rational, 
411,  with  the  social,  414-417.  See  also 
Morality ;  Morals. 

Moral  education,  in  school,  411,  416-417, 
418.    See  Education. 

Moral  knowledge,  scope  of,  414,  418. 

Morality,  as  affected  by  environment,  21 ; 
different  conceptions  of,  402,  405-407 ; 
the  essence  of,  from  one  viewpoint,  405, 
true  essence  of,  418;  ordinary,  a  com- 
promise, 406.     See  also  Moral ;  Morals. 

Morals,  theories  of,  402-417,  summary,4i8. 
See  also  Moral ;  Morality. 

Motivation,  as  affected  by  active  occupa- 
tions in  school,  228-229,  241,  by  voca- 
tion out  of  school,  362  ;  extraneous,  and 
double  mindedness,  209 ;  in  relation  to 
interest,  147  ;  in  scientific  efficiency,  99. 

Motive  of  action  vs.  its  consequences,  402, 
405-406,  418. 

Motives,  adventitious,  64-65,  209. 

Music,  its  prime  function  in  education,  278- 
279;  inconsistent  treatment  of,  302. 
See  also  Art ;  Fine  arts. 


Napoleonic  struggle,  influence  on  educa* 
tion,  109-110. 

Nationalistic  aim  of  education,  conflict 
with  social,  113,  116. 

Nationalistic  movement  and  state-sup- 
jxjrted  education,  108-109,  116. 

Natural  (normal)  vs.  natural  (physical), 
131- 

Naturalism,  see  Humanism  115.  naturalism. 

Nature,  as  supplying  aim  of  education,  130- 
138,  376,  summary,  144;  as  conceived 
by  Kant,  no,  by  Rousseau,  106,  131- 
132  ;  education  in  accord  with,  106-108, 
110-111,116;  M. nurture,  137, 144.  See 
also  Dualisms;  Heredity  in  relation  to 
environment;  Man  and  nature. 

Nature  study,  a  part  of  geography,  246, 
250. 

Nervous  strain  of  school  work,  causes  of, 
165-166,  210,  289,  355. 

Nervous  system,  ofSce  of,  391-392. 

Non-social  relations  within  social  group,  6. 
See  also  Antisocial. 

Nurture,  see  Nature  vs.  nurture. 

Obedience,  as  a  moral  duty,  406. 

Object  lessons,  vs.  book  knowledge,  390; 
defect  of,  233,  314,  316. 

Objective  vs.  subjective  knowledge,  147, 
345.  39°-     See  also  Inner,  vs.  outer. 

Observation,  superficial,  210;  the  training 
of,  77-78.  See  also  Experience  as  experi- 
mentation ;  Laboratories ;  Laboratory 
work ;  Sense  impressions. 

Obstinacy,  vs.  will  power,  150.  See  also 
Will. 

Occupations,  active,  as  providing  back- 
ground of  appreciation,  273;  basic 
function  of,  274 ;  the  connections  of,  255 ; 
place  in  education,  228-230,  234-237, 
241,  243-244,  401,  410,  418;  available 
for  school  use,  230-237,  321;  social 
occupations,  intellectualized,  321,  giving 
moral  knowledge,  414,  418.  See  also 
Activities,     Activity. 

Open-mindedness,  means  of  evoking,  273 ; 
involved  in  good  method,  205-206,  211; 
a  moral  quality,  414;  a  philosophic  dis- 
position, 380. 

Ordering,  an  aspect  of  directive  action,  30, 
47,  75,  n». 

Organization  of  subject  matter  of  the  child. 


Index 


429 


216,   of  the  adult,   215-216.    See  also 

Logical  vs.  psychological  method. 
"Original  research,"  by  children,  187,  202- 

203,  354;  in  all  thinking,  173-174. 
Originality,  of  attitude  vs.  of  results,  354; 

of  thought,  202-203. 
Outer,  vs.  inner,  402-407,  418.     See  also 

Dualisms;  Objective. 
Outlook,  breadth  of,  a  moral  quality,  414. 

Pain  and  pleasure,  as  regulating  action, 
350;  in  relation  to  aim,  148-149;  as 
explained  by  Herbart,  82  ;  as  a  motive, 
64-65,  198,  209.  See  also  Penalties  and 
rewards;  Punishment. 

Painting,  its  prime  function  in  education, 
278-279.     See  also  Art ;  Fine  arts. 

Partiality,  see  Partisanship. 

Participator  vs.  spectator,  393 ;  attitude  of, 
146-147. 

Particular,  vs.  general,  399-400;  vs.  imi- 
versal,  389.     See  also  Dualisms. 

Partisanship  of  human  nature  as  related  to 
interest,  172-173,  175,  205. 

Passivity  vs.  activity  in  learning,  390. 

Past,  its  relation  to  the  present,  88-89,  Q3. 

Pedagogics,  by  Kant,  quoted,  iio-iii. 

Pedagogy,  accusation  against,  194;  one 
reason  for  its  disrepute,  199-200 ;  "soft," 
149. 

Penalties  and  rewards,  philosophic  basis 
for,  391,  reason  for  emphasis,  276.  See 
also  Pain  and  pleasure;  Punishment. 

Perfection,  as  a  goal,  66. 

Personality,  high  worth  of,  vs.  social  effi- 
ciency, 142,  144-145. 

Pestalozzi,  emphasis  on  natural  principles 
of  growth,  136 ;  the  work  of,  108 ;  for- 
malizing of  his  work,  by  his  disciples, 
233- 

Philanthropy,  how  to  render  it  construc- 
tive, 374. 

Philosophies,  moral,  treatment  of  the  social- 
ization of  the  individual,  347-351. 

Philosophy,  as  emphasizing  conflict  be- 
tween humanism  and  naturalism,  331- 
333.  338;  nature  of,  378-387,  summary, 
387 ;  intimate  connection  with  educa- 
tion, 383-387.  See  also  Aristotle ; 
Athens;  Dualisms.  Plato;  Socrates; 
Sophists. 

Philosophy  of  education,  critical  review  of 


Chapters  I-XXIII  of  this  book  bringing 

out  the  philosophic  issues,  375-377. 
Physical  vs.  psychical,  402,  reconciled,  403- 

404.     See  also  Body  and  mind  ;  Body  vs. 

soul ;  Dualisms. 
Physical  helplessness,  vs.  social  power,  51- 

52- 

Physiology,  proving  interdependence  of 
mind  and  body,  391-392,  401. 

Plasticity,  definition,  and  implications,  52- 
53,  55,  n»,  62. 

Plato,  educational  philosophy  of,  102-106, 
112,  115,  140,  361;  knowledge  as  based 
on  doing,  229,  as  virtue,  411;  relation 
between  man  and  nature,  325 ;  views  on 
arithmetic  and  geometry,  303,  on  experi- 
ence and  reason,  306,  307,  311-312. 
See  also  Aristotle;  Athens;  Dualisms; 
Greeks ;  Philosophy ;  Socrates ;  Sophists. 

Play,  as  providing  background  of  appre- 
ciation, 273;  how  different  from  work, 
237-239,  241-242,  368,  from  fooUng,  239 ; 
play  and  work  in  the  curriculum,  228- 
241,  376,  416,  summary,  241-242,  243- 
244 ;  difference  in  their  imaginative  ele- 
ment, 277.     See  also  Work. 

Playgrounds,  school,  uses  of,  416. 

Plays,  dramatic,  in  primitive  education,  9; 
in  school  work,  190. 

Pleasure,  see  Pain  and  pleasure. 

Poetry,  the  value  of,  282. 

Politics,  to  be  included  in  vocational  edu- 
cation, 372. 

Potentiality,  double  meaning  of  word,  49. 

Poverty,  not  the  greatest  evil  of  present 
regime,  370. 

Power,  mental,  291. 

Practical  education,  see  Vocation,  etc. 

"Practical"  mEin  vs.  man  of  theory  or  cul- 
ture, 159. 

Practical  studies,  see  Intellectual  vs.  prac- 
tical studies. 

Practice  vs.  theory,  159,  266-267,  268,  340, 
344,  358,  373,  378,  385.  391 ;  early  con- 
ception, 305,  306-311,  318,  modern  view, 
311-317;  why  educational  practice  lags 
behind  theory,  46-47.    See  also  Dualisms. 

Pragmatism,  395,  400. 

Prejudices,  one  result  of,  206. 

Preparation,  education  as,  63-65,  375, 
summary,  79 ;  step  of,  in  Herbart's 
theory,  82, 


430 


Index 


Present,  importance  of  living  fti,  63-65,  79, 
8s,  88-89,  93,  362. 

Presentations,  in  Herbart's  theory,  81- 
82. 

Primitive  education,  8-9,  20,  43-44.  See 
also  Initiation  ceremonies. 

Primitive  life,  as  introduction  to  history, 
252. 

"Principle,"  true  meaning  of,  410.  See 
also  Dualisms ;  Duty. 

Printing,  invention  of,  efiect  on  education, 
213. 

Prizes,  need  of,  391.  See  also  Penalties 
and  rewards. 

Problem,  of  discipline,  source  of,  165-166; 
educational,  the  present,  333-338,  339; 
pupil's  own,  vs.  teacher's  or  textbook's, 
182. 

Progress,  social,  narrow  and  broad  idea  of, 
261;  Hegel's  idea  of,  69-70;  how  pro- 
vided for,  54 ;  as  result  of  science,  261- 
267. 

Progressiveness,  see  Conservatism  vs.  pro- 
gressiveness. 

Promoting  and  keeping  back,  why  em- 
phasized, 276,  391. 

Protestant  revolt,  as  intrenching  human- 
ism, 329-330- 

Psychical,  see  Physical  vs.  psychical. 

Psychological  organization  of  knowledge  by 
vocation,  362.     See  also  Logical. 

Psychology,  as  modifying  course  of  study, 
228 ;  as  guide  to  individual  method,  203  ; 
false,  of  learning,  34-35,  40,  of  sensa- 
tionalistic  empiricism,  316,  317  ;  modem, 
vs.  faculty  psychology,  228,  view  of  voca- 
tional education,  368-369,  374;  social, 
and  imitation,  40-43.  See  also  Child 
study. 

Public  education,  system  of,  first  under- 
taken by  Germany,  112. 

Public  service  occupations,  the  socializing 
of,  236. 

Punishment,  to  arouse  interest,  ij*;  sys- 
tems of,  65.  See  also  Pain  and  pleasure ; 
Penalties  and  rewards. 

Pupil,  false  idea  of  word,  164. 

Purpose,  in  relation  to  interest,  147.  See 
also  Aim. 

Quadcery,  degenerate  empiricism,  263, 308. 
See  also  Empiricism. 


Questioning,  children's,  in  and  out  of  school, 
183;  suggestive,  66-67. 

Rationalism,  348-349,  395 ;  vs.  empiricism 
or  sensationalism,  399-400,  401.  See 
also  Dualisms;  Reason. 

Readjustment,  mode  of,  404. 

Realism,  395,  401.     See  also  Materialism. 

Realization,  the  nature  of,  271-279. 

Reason,  early  considered  the  distinctively 
human  function,  295,  the  only  adequate 
guide  of  activity,  307,  322 ;  set  up  as  a 
distinct  faculty,  348;  modem  concep- 
tion of,  323,  400,  essential  to  growth  and 
to  knowledge,  400.  See  also  Rational- 
ism; Thinking;  Thought. 

Recapitulation  theory,  84-85,  236. 

Reconstruction,  as  the  function  of  educa- 
tion, 12,  26,  89-92,  93;  of  education 
necessary,  369,  386 ;  of  education,  of  phi- 
losophy, of  society,  all  interdependent, 
386,  387 ;  of  society,  dependent  upon 
educational  reorganization,  373,  also  upon 
legislation  and  administration,  374.  See 
also  Reformers. 

Recreation,  meaning  and  need  of,  240-241. 

Reflection,  see  Reason;  Thinking; 
Thought. 

Reform,  educational,  see  Reconstructkm, 
of  education. 

Reformers,  educational,  recent  changes 
effected  in  course  of  study,  228-230,  320- 
321.    See  also  Reconstruction. 

Relations  of  things,  not  to  be  separated 
from  perceptions,  167-169,  177. 

Religion,  its  conflict  with  science,  381. 

Renascence,  see  Revival  of  learning. 

Reorganization,  see  Reconstruction. 

Reproduction,  as  continuing  the  life 
process,  2,  11. 

Republic,  of  Plato,  325. 

Response,  effective,  defined,  181-182;  as 
related  to  stimulus,  29-30,  73;  •nly  to 
selected  stimtdi,  56. 

Responsibility,  the  basis  of,  392 ;  escaped 
by  reliance  on  dog:ma,  394 ;  as  a  trait  of 
method,  209-210,  211;  how  to  increase 
sense  of,  in  the  rich,  374. 

Results,  in  contrast  with  ends,  11 7-1 18; 
in  relation  to  interest,  147. 

Retrospect,  value  of,  178. 

Retrospection,  education  as,  85-89. 


Index 


431 


Revival  of  learning,  327 ;    characteristics, 

328-329.  330. 
Rewards,  see  Penalties  and  rewards. 
Romans,  influence  on  education,  306-327, 

338. 
Rousseau,   and  education  for  citizenship, 

109,  n' :  and  natural  education,  131-138 ; 

influence  of  Plato  upon,  106;    view  of 

social  conditions,  70. 
Routine,  contrasted  with  continuity,  392, 

with    educative    action,     90-91,     with 

thoughtful  action,  171,  181 ;  negated  by 

vocational  aim,  361,  by  knowledge,  397  ; 

penalty  for  developing,  363.    See   also 

Activities;  Activity. 
Routine  methods,  origin  and  results,  199. 
Rule,  prescribed,  vs.  general  method,  201. 

Schiller,  appreciation  of  institutions,  69. 

Scholasticism,  its  nature,  and  influence  on 
education,  327-328,  395,  398-399- 

School,  the  bridging  of  gap  between  it  and 
life,  228,  273,  416-417,  418;  freedom  vs. 
sodal  control  in,  351-352,  356-357;  its 
greatest  need  at  present,  48;  origin,  9; 
purpose  and  finest  product  of  education 
in,  60;  as  a  special  environment,  22-26, 
27,  212,  226,  230,  320-321,  401;  a 
steadying  and  integrating  power,  26;  a 
relatively  superficial  means  of  educa- 
tion, 4-5,  1 1 ;  its  work  once  appropriately 
book  work,  229-230.  See  also  Environ- 
ment;  Formal  education. 

Schools  of  method,  395-400,  summary,  400- 
401. 

Science,  applied  vs.  "pure,"  268,  336-337; 
aim,  264,  266,  269.  270;  its  dawn  in  the 
Renascence,  329,  the  outgrowth  of  occu- 
pations, 235-237,  reason  for  its  early 
slow  advance,  174;  definition,  223,  256, 
263,  267,  268,  269;  generaUty,  totality 
and  ultimateness  of,  379 ;  as  sharpening 
opposition  of  man  and  nature,  330-331, 
332,  later,  testifying  to  their  continuity, 
333;  as  merging  into  philosophy,  379; 
as  rationalized  knowledge,  221-224,  263  ; 
conflict  with  religion,  381 ;  as  means  of 
social  progress,  261-267  >  its  kind  of 
value  dependent  on  the  situation,  282, 
384. 

Science  study,  256-269,  372,  376,  iimimary, 
a69-J7o;    historical  basis  of  contempt 


for,  310;  its  blow  to  prestige  of  "intel- 
lectual" studies,  321 ;  improper  method, 
257,  259,  267,  302,  322,  335.  Su  also 
Experimental  method ;  Exf)erimenta- 
tion  ;  Laboratory  work ;  Logical  method ; 
Method  as  defining  science. 

Sciences,  social,  proper  school  approach  to, 
236-237 ;  subject  to  same  method  as 
natural  sciences,  333. 

Selection,  of  responses,  74. 

Self,  not  fixed  but  continually  forming, 
407-408;  and  interest,  two  names  for 
same  fact,  408;  consciousness  of,  a  foe 
to  good  method,  204;  control  of,  as  a 
moral  duty,  406.  See  also  Individual 
and  the  World;  Interest  vs.  duty  or 
principle ;  Self-activity,  etc. 

Self-activity  in  narrow  and  wide  sense, 
353- 

Self-interest,  406,  407. 

Selflessness,  408. 

Sensationalism,  see  Empiricism. 

Sense  impressions,  vs.  book  knowledge,  390 ; 
essential  to  knowledge  and  to  growth, 
400;  as  used  in  experimentation,  318; 
historic  basis  for  their  neglect  in  higher 
education,  322 ;  over-use  of,  185.  See 
also  Empiricism ;  Observation. 

Service,  social,  may  lack  sympathy,  141. 

Shops,  value  in  school  work,  190,  416. 

Simple  vs.  complex,  false  notion  of,  234. 

Sincerity,  a  moral  quality,  414. 

Single-mindedness,  a  trait  of  good  method, 
207-209,  211 ;  a  moral  quality,  414. 

Skill,  proper  background  and  outlook  for, 
244,  277,  303 ;  danger  of  drilling  for, 
209,  233 ;  as  an  end  of  school  work,  179, 
190,  322  ;  inferior  to  imderstanding,  299, 
318;  limitation  when  based  on  mera 
habit,  91,  96,  363,  395  ;  narrow  vs.  broad, 
303 ;  as  freeing  mind  for  thought,  304 ; 
transfer  of,  75. 

Slavery,  ultimate  waste  in,  361 ;  actuat 
and  natural,  295-296,  303,  304,  305; 
Aristotle's  views  concerning,  337. 

Social,  the,  identical  with  the  moral,  414, 
417. 

Sodal  situation,  hostile,  escaped  by  sub- 
jectivism, 405,  reaction,  405-406 ;  present, 
the  greatest  evil  of,  370-371;  incon- 
sistendes  of,  298-305.  See  also  Gass 
distinctions. 


432 


Index 


Sodal  spirit,  the  desideratum  of  school 
work,  415-416;  school  conditions  neces- 
sary for,  416-417;  social  sympathy,  to 
be  made  constructive  by  vocational  edu- 
cation, 374,  as  widening  thought,  173. 
See  also  Disposition. 

Society,  antisocial  spirit  in,  6,  gg-ioo,  115  ; 
means  of  its  continuity,  3-4,  11,  12; 
despotic,  defects  of,  97-99;  means  of 
formation,  5-6 ;  ideal,  constitution  and 
conditions  of,  95,  369-370,  374 ;  not  one 
body,  but  many,  24-26,  94-97 ;  as  an 
organism,  70;  treatment  of  individual 
variations,  357.  See  also  Class  distinc- 
tions ;   State. 

Socrates,  as  to  nature  of  knowledge,  411- 
413 ;  as  to  relation  of  man  to  nature, 
324-325. 

Sophists,  the  first  professional  educators, 

385. 
Soul  vs.  body,  402;    replaced  by  brain  vs. 

rest  of  body,  391.     See  also  Dualisms. 
Spectator  vs.  participator,  attitude  of,  146- 

147,  393- 
Spelling,  in  theory  of  formal  discipline,  75- 

76,  76-77. 
Spencer,  Herbert,  attitude  toward  science, 

258. 
Spiritual,  see  Physical  vs.  psychical. 
Spiritual  culture,  why  usually  futile,  143. 
"Spontaneous   development,"    Rousseau's 

theory  of,  134. 
Standards,  conventional,  vs.  individual,  64 ; 

Greek  divorce  from  experience,  309;   as 

determined     by     environment,     21-22; 

isolated,  388;    nature  of,  274-276,  285, 

292.     See  also  Criteria. 
Btate,  aid  to  poor  students,  1 14 ;  "organic  " 

character  of,  no;   regulation  of  private 

schools,  112  ;  support  of  education,  108- 

115,  116,  philosophy  of,  351.    See  also 

Society. 
Stimuli,  choice  of,  47,  56,  75 ;  the  crude  vs. 

the  selected  and  weighted,  44 ;  found  in 

present  situation,  30-31,  42,  47,  64;   to 

be  modified  by  teacher,  212. 
Stimulus,  directive  fimction  of,  29-30 ;  ex- 
ternal relation  to  response,  55,  n';    as 

modified  by  response,  73-75. 
Stoidsm,  380,  405. 
Stubbonmess,  vs.  will  power,  150;  result  of, 

306. 


Studies,  evil  result  of  complication  and 
congestion,  210;  "intellectual,"  recent 
reform  in,  321;  isolated,  158;  in  the 
typical  schoolroom,  nominal  vs.  real, 
184;  origin,  9;  traditional,  modification 
needed,  114,  one  reason  for  their  per- 
sistence, 156;  valuation  of,  279-2S5, 
291-292.    See  also  Subject  matter. 

Study,  two  senses  of,  390. 

Subject  matter,  as  including  active  occu- 
pations and  play,  273;  of  active  occu- 
pations may  be  academic,  232 ;  defini- 
tion, 153-154,  194;  development  of,  413- 
414 ;  as  developing  disposition,  81 ;  gener- 
ality, totality,  and  ultimateness  of,  378, 
379-380,  381 ;  Herbart's  emphasis  of,  82, 
83,  93;  isolated,  evils  of,  157-158,  162, 
388;  nature  of,  158,  162,  212-226,  376, 
summary,  226-227;  of  primitive  educa- 
tion, 212-213.  See  also  Method  vs. 
subject  matter;  Studies. 

Subjective,  see  Objective  vs.  subjective. 

Symbols,  danger  in  use  of,  272-273 ;  dan- 
ger  and  value  of,  259-261,  265;  de- 
pendence upon  imagination,  278;  Froe- 
belian,  67-68,  79-80 ;  Herbart's  relation 
to,  83;  implements  of  indirect  experi- 
ence, 271-272;  learning  now  becoming 
less  dependent  on,  368,  369;  necessity 
in  advanced  culture,  10;  use  as  affected 
by  sensationalistic  empiricism,  314-315, 
315-316,  as  necessitating  schools,  22—23. 

Sympathy,  intelligent,  chief  element  of 
social  efficiency,  141,  144-145 ;  to  be 
made  constructive  by  vocational  educa- 
tion, 374;   as  widening  thought,  173. 

System  of  education,  compulsory  and  state- 
supported,  first  found  in  Germany,  112; 
present,  an  inconsistent  mixture,  301- 
302,  305. 

Taste,  as  determined  by  environment,  ai- 

22. 
Teacher  and  learner,  reciprocal  relations 

of,  83,  188. 
Teaching,    essential    to    continuance    <rf 

society,  4-7 ;  the  limitation  of  its  power, 

20;  three  types  of,  191-192. 
Theories  of   morals,  402-417,   suaunaiy, 

418. 
Theory,  see  Practice  vs.  theory. 
Things  vs.  relations,  167-169,  177. 


i 


Index 


433 


rhinking,  in  education,  179-192,  203,  361- 
362,  376,  summary,  192;  and  experi- 
ence, 163-177,  180,  376,  summary,  177- 
178;  vs.  knowledge,  186,  345,  380-381, 
385 ;  philosophic,  differentiation  from 
thinking  in  general,  387 ;  saved  by  re- 
liance on  dogma,  394 ;  a  social  mode  of 
behavior,  14;  training  in,  as  an  end  of 
school  work,  179,  192.  See  also  Reason  ; 
Thought. 

Thoroughness,  intellectual  vs.  physical, 
210;   a  moral  quality,  414. 

Thought,  wider  ed  through  social  sym- 
pathy, 173.     See  also  Reason  ;  Thinking. 

Three  R's,  not  the  only  "essentials,"  226. 

Threshold  of  consciousness,  81,  82. 

Tool  subjects,  inconsistent  treatment  of, 
301-302,  304. 

Totality  of  subject  matter  and  of  method, 
378,  379-380,  381. 

Town  and  gown,  influence  of  their  separa- 
tion, 416. 

Tradition,  early  revolt  against,  306-307, 
322,  343,  356;  questioned  by  the 
Sophists,  385;  literary,  the  waning  of, 
367-368,  369. 

Training,  vs.  educative  teaching,  15-16,  35. 
See  also  Education. 

Transcendentalism,  388,  395. 

"Transfer"  of  training,  75,  76,  78. 

Transmission  of  life,  1-4,  11;  of  complex 
sodal  customs,  9,  11. 

Trial  and  error  method,  169-170,  176-177, 
181. 

Truth,  ancient  and  medieval  attitude 
toward,  341,  later  attitude,  343-344; 
survival  of  the  earlier  attitude,  390. 

Truthfulness,  moral  nature  of,  415. 

Types  of  schools,  historical  explanation  of, 
289-290. 

Typewriting,  as  an  illustration  of  nature  of 
mind,  154. 

Ultimateness  of  subject  matter  and  of 
method,  378,  379,  380. 

Understanding,  as  a  means  of  control,  37, 
39,  43,  47. 

Understanding  one  another,  meaning  of, 
18. 

Uniformity  of  procedure,  evil  of  over- 
emphasizing, 206;  not  the  equivalent  of 
conformity,  60. 


Umversal  vs.  particular,  359,  399-400.  See 
also  Dualisms. 

Universal  education,  system  of,  first  under- 
taken by  Germany,  112. 

Unselfishness,  true  and  false  meaning,  408- 
409. 

Use  as  giving  things  meaning,  34-35. 

Utilitarian  education,  see  Intellectual  vs. 
practical  studies ;  Labor  vs.  leisure ;  Vo- 
cation, etc. 

Utilitarianism,  in  elementary  education, 
160;  in  morals,  406. 

Value,  two  meanings  of,  279,  291-292. 

Values,  educational,  271-291,  summary, 
291-292,  376-377;  segregation  and 
organization  of,  285-291 ;  of  certain 
studies,  279-285.  See  also  Aims,  In- 
terests. 

Variations,  individual,  see  Individuality. 

Virtue,  relation  to  action  and  knowledge, 
385;  to  knowledge,  410-414,  418;  full 
meaning  of,  415. 

Vocation,  meaning  of,  358-360,  373 ;  as 
organizing  one's  knowledge,  362 ;  narrow 
and  broad  sense  of,  350-360,  373-374. 
See  also  Business;  Commerce;  Labor, 
vs.  leisure. 

Vocational  aspects  of  education,  358-373, 
summary,  374-374. 

Vocational  education,  early,  must  be  in- 
direct, 373-364;  for  skill  only,  iUiberal 
and  immoral,  304,  363,  369;  narrow 
and  broad  conception  of,  372-373, 
373-374;  present  opportunities  and  dan- 
gers, 140,  364-373,  373-374;  sodal 
value  of,  234-235.  See  also  Culture 
vs.  eflSdency  ;  Industrial  occupations ; 
Intellectual  vs.  practical  studies ;  Voca- 
tion, etc. 

Vocational  guidance,  proper  and  improper. 
364- 

Vorstellungen,  81. 

War,  as  an  educative  force,  100;  how 
education  may  avert,  114-115;  Euro- 
pean, in  1916,  used  in  illustrating 
processes  of  thought,  171-173,  17S- 

Wealth  of  parents,  not  to  determine  voca- 
tion of  child,  140. 

Will,  appeal  to,  as  stimulus  to  effort,  198; 
definition,  157,  161-162;    essential  dif- 


434 


Index 


ference  between  weak  and  strong,  151 ; 

two  factors  in,  150-151. 
Windelband,    on    relation    of    science    to 

humanism,  329. 
Women,  Aristotle's  classification  of,  296. 
Words  vs.  ideas,  168-169. 
Work,  how  different  from  drudgery,  240, 

.268.    See  also  Labor ;  Play  and  work. 


Workrooms,  school,  uses  of,  416. 
World,  see  Individual  and  the  worid. 
"World-spirit,"  69. 
Worry,  one  school  cause  of,  210.    Ste  alst 

Nervous  strain. 
Writing,  invention  of,  e£fect  on  education, 

213. 


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